A seven-day-long Indo-U.S. workshop on “Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Disease: Translational Research from Bench to Bedside to the Field” began here on Monday with Purnima Madhivanan, Associate Professor in Health Promotion Sciences at University of Arizona, U.S., explaining the limitations of adapting western concepts of research on public health problems in India.
Participating in the opening session of the workshop organised by JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (JSSAHER), Mysuru, in association with Public Health Research Institute of India (PHRII), Mysuru, Dr. Madhivanan said public health problems were increasingly shifting from rich countries to poor countries and from rich populations to poor populations even within the western world.
Noting that most collaborations between western world and non-western world in the field of scientific research and transfer of skills benefit the former, she hoped that this workshop shifted the balance. “Even when research is coducted among non-western population as a genuine collaboration, it is too often an export-failure from the West. We take a western concept and think it will work in our culture and our communities and most the times it fails”, she said.
