Introduction to R for Health Researchers

This programme is part of the R for Fun Club, a vibrant Community of Practice (CoP) hosted on the Afredac Ubuntu Platform. The club is dedicated to fostering peer-to-peer learning and collaboration among health researchers and data enthusiasts. Facilitated by experienced professionals, the CoP offers ongoing support, discussions, and hands-on sessions to enhance participants’ R programming skills. Through this community, members can engage with like-minded individuals, share resources, and stay updated on the latest trends and tools in health data analysis.

Facilitators:

Duncan Gathungu Ph.D

Dr Gathungu is a data scientist leveraging mathematical modelling and numerical optimisation to extract insights for public health interventions and develop community-based solutions for data acquisition, usage, reliability, and consistency challenges.

Currently, he is using EMOD to model structural interventions for HIV transmission reduction in key populations. This involves developing data frameworks, model calibration, and intensive data post-processing. Previously, he collaborated with WHO, Burnet Institute, and IDM to model COVID-19 policy development for vaccination strategies for optimal school reopening and healthcare capacity management. His expertise includes agent-based modelling, statistical analysis, NCD burden estimation, and data science as a tool for resourceful data utilisation in the health sector.

Dr Gathungu is a lead data scientist at Afredac and co-organiser of the RForFun Club!

Aashna Uppal BSc, MScPH, DPhil Candidate

Aashna Uppal is part of the HDRUK-Turing-Wellcome PhD Programme in Health Data Science, based at the University of Oxford. Prior to this, she worked as an epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of Canada, on the COVID-19 surveillance and epidemiology team. Her academic background is in biology and mathematics (undergraduate) and public health (graduate) – she completed both her BSc and MScPH at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During that time, she had the opportunity to work with a research team focused on answering a variety of questions related to tuberculosis in the Canadian North. 

Throughout her academic and professional career, she has been an advocate of using R to enable epidemiologic analyses. Accordingly, she considers herself to be an R-ethusiast; the initial struggle of learning this language is so worth it!

Ms. Uppal is an active member of Afredac and co-organiser of the RForFun Club!

Kwaku Duah BA, MPhil

Mr Duah is a nurse and a self-trained computer programmer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Health Science Education and a Master of Philosophy in health systems research and management. He is a data management and analysis consultant at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research into Tropical Medicine (KCCR) and a Ministry of Health Tutor. He initially learned computer programming to grade his students but was soon amazed by the possibilities of computer programming.

He is passionate about R and has mentored several people to use R for their data analysis workflow. He occasionally writes R blogs describing the use of R in edge cases, including the automation of tasks. He looks forward to collaborating with you concerning anti-microbial resistance and snakebites envenoming.

Kwaku is an active member of Afredac and co-organiser of the RForFun Club!

Frank M. Kagoro MD., PgDip, MSc, Ph.D

Dr. Kagoro is a spatial epidemiologist and public health expert. He is the Founder and Technical Director of Afya Research Data Consultancy (AFREDAC) in Tanzania. He is an International Research Associate for Research Consulting in the UK and a Collaborative Research Fellow at the Centre for Optimising Antimalarial Therapy (CCOAT), University of Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Kagoro’s expertise spans in spatial epidemiology and data science, with a career in clinical trials, surveillance, public health research, knowledge management and working with various esteemed institutions such as The Global Health Network, WWARN, MORU, and Ifakara Health Institute. His current focus is on analytics for decision-making, surveillance, capacity development and knowledge management.

Dr Kagoro is a co-organiser of the RForFun Club!