Almost 30 years since political liberation, vast social, economic and health inequities exist throughout South Africa. These are especially stark when contrasting rural and urban health experiences and outcomes, where broader socio-political phenomena are brought to bear on people’s everyday lives. The MRC/Wits-Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) was established with a health and socio-demographic surveillance system (HDSS) in 1992, prior to liberation, in rural northeast South Africa, close to the national border with Mozambique. Professors Stephen Tollman and Kathleen Kahn will discuss their experiences in researching the effects of transitions on health and well-being along the life course, including the impact of HIV, COVID-19 and mental health on people living in Agincourt sub-district and its surrounding areas.

Professor Stephen Tollman is the founding director of the Medical Research Council / Wits University Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit, responsible for its world-class health and sociodemographic platform (Agincourt HDSS), and multidisciplinary research spanning the life course. He is research professor in the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, and a faculty member of the Harvard Center for Population & Development Studies. Steve studied medicine at Wits, PPE in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and public health at Harvard. Steve was a founder and first Board Chair of INDEPTH (2002-06), an exceptional research network led from the global South. He has served on international thinktanks: UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health (2016-18), Academy of Medical Sciences-UK Addressing the global challenge of multimorbidity (2016-18), National Academy of Sciences-USA Continuing Epidemiological Transition in sub-Saharan Africa (2010-13) and Research and Data Needs to Meet the Challenge of Aging in Africa (2004-6).

Professor Kathleen Kahn is a Personal Professor in the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, and Principal Scientist in the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). A physician with a PhD in public health and epidemiology, Kathy has devoted 30 years to working in rural South Africa and the sub-Saharan African region. Kathy partners with communities, government departments, and collaborating investigators to undertake scientifically rigorous, ethically sound, and community-sensitive research and to elevate rural priorities to policy and decision makers. She has led work on mortality and cause of death measurement, using verbal autopsy to track transitions over a period of dramatic socio-political change and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She leads a research portfolio on adolescent and young adult health and development including HIV prevention, mental health and non-communicable disease risk reduction. More recently, she contributed to multicentre work on the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2; and examined the impacts of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the health and livelihoods of rural communities.

Zoom: https://anu.zoom.us/j/87260321033?pwd=TEtJV2RPaXpCR0N3V1ZRWlVQb1B1UT09
Meeting ID: 872 6032 1033 | Password: 725221