Africa Academy for Public Health Internship Program To All

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Africa Academy for Public Health Internship Program (AAPH)

Discover Opportunities at the Africa Academy for Public Health Internship Program

Public Health Internship opportunities: AAPH offers an internship program for graduates and undergraduate students in their middle to senior years interested in practical experience in public health and research. Internships typically take place after graduation or during university students’ summer break. AAPH offers an opportunity to pair each student with two mentors, one in Tanzania and one from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

AAPH has the potential to extend its services to accommodate field placements for postgraduate students in Tanzania and other interested institutions to gain hands-on skills and experience in research design, data management and analysis, and scientific writing.

Public Health HIV Care and Treatment clinics, Reproductive and Child Health Clinics that provide Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT), and other sites offer opportunities for interns to participate in fieldwork.

Additionally, the Dar es Salaam Urban Cohort Study (DUCS), which is jointly implemented by MUHAS and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with administrative support from AAPH, as well as the Dodoma Demographic & Health Surveillance System (DHSS), offers an opportunity for interns to obtain practical experience in community health while providing opportunities for rich data to answer diverse research questions.

To date, AAPH has hosted over 16 interns from different universities and will expand its program to attract more students within and outside Tanzania through its ARISE Network partners. It is excellent to have interns who come to learn and contribute too.

Areas of Strategic Focus

In working to achieve the five strategic goals, AAPH focuses on five thematic areas:

Maternal, child, and adolescent nutrition. Priority areas include maternal undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and issues in early childhood development, such as wasting, stunting, and anemia.
Reproductive, maternal, newborn, childhood, and adolescent health. AAPH works with various stakeholders to design, evaluate, and scale up effective interventions to increase access to quality obstetric, delivery, postnatal, under-five, and adolescent health services across the country.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs). AAPH aligns its research and training activities to develop cost-effective strategies to reduce the impact of NCDs on the country’s burden of disease. The target is to generate relevant evidence on distribution, frequencies, and key drivers of modifiable risk factors for these conditions. AAPH also collaborates with other stakeholders to evaluate and advance the delivery of quality clinical management of prevalent NCDs in the region.
Infectious diseases. AAPH embarks on research and training activities geared toward achieving epidemic control of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), as well as eliminating tuberculosis, malaria, and other infectious diseases of public health importance in sub-Saharan Africa. AAPH strives to amplify its role in generating evidence to inform national efforts toward efficient emergency preparedness and outbreak management.
Institutional strengthening. AAPH invests in robust institutional-strengthening and resource-mobilization strategies.

Projects within these thematic areas offer diverse opportunities for internships and student placements.

In addition to AAPH’s core business in AAPH Research and Programs, AAPH shall admit a limited number of interns into the supporting departments, i.e., Finance, Human Resources, and Administration, as well as the Data Science and Information Technology departments.

Admission Criteria

Over the years, AAPH has worked closely with local academic institutions, particularly MUHAS, to host MSc in Implementation Science candidates for a 3-month field placement. The candidates worked closely with their supervisors and AAPH staff to help conduct a local implementation science project.

On the other hand, AAPH has also hosted international students for 4 weeks during their undergraduate training and engaged them in practical fieldwork, including data collection. Likewise, students were working closely with their supervisors, but in support of and as close mentors to the AAPH staff. The AAPH-IP receives both local and international interns interested in gaining practical experience and skills. Admission shall be on a rolling basis per the following criteria:

Interested individuals must complete an online application form and submit the required documents.
The applicants must be affiliated with a local or international academic/public/private institution that must nominate or recommend the candidate to AAPH by letter.

Duration

The duration of the field placement shall be between one and three months. It is possible to extend the internship with prior arrangements.

Costs

The costs for travel, accommodation, health/medical insurance, and the daily subsistence allowance (including meals) are the sole responsibility of the intern or the affiliated institution. AAPH-IP will not, by any means, cover any of such costs. However, while the candidates are at the AAPH premises, they will have access to workstations and internet services.

They will be provided with the necessary materials or documents to meet their internship goals. Nevertheless, interns are strongly advised to bring their own laptops. In addition, for field activities, AAPH will facilitate logistical arrangements, subject to the existing project(s) and available funds.

Contact Information

For more information on the AAPH-IP and field placements, please contact us and address your inquiries to the Human Resources and Administration Office.