An Edinburgh student has spoken of their experience of travelling to Bangladesh to study healthcare trends in reducing deaths from childhood pneumonia.
Lois King, 26, studies her PhD in Population Health Sciences remotely at Edinburgh University.
She spent her formative years in Edinburgh however, attending Craigmount High School, and living in various areas of the capital including Corstorphine, Cramond and Leith.
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Her PhD thesis: ‘Governance of childhood pneumonia: assessing the effect of global narratives on national priorities and implementation in Bangladesh’ - focused on how the country has managed to reduce childhood mortality relating to the illness.
She hopes that her work will allow health care providers across the world to be able to learn best practices for tackling the illness.
But alongside discussing her academic experience, the young black female also spoke about her fears around travelling alone as well as the difficulties facing researchers like herself in the Education industry.
As part of her thesis, Lois was afforded funding in order to travel to Bangladesh to discover how the country is implementing health policy.
Bangladesh was a “really interesting case study” for the Edinburgh based student, as she says that they “have significantly reduced child deaths from pneumonia in only a few decades so I thought it would be interesting to find out how they are doing it.”
On her experience there, she said: “I recently went to Bangladesh and was based in the capital city, Dhaka, but I also did site visits to other parts of the country.
“It can be intimidating travelling solo as a Black woman to a country where you don’t speak the language and whose tourism industry is still being developed. But I would recommend it.
“I enjoyed the experience, it gave me more confidence and I felt looked after by the people, even right from the flight prior to arriving at the airport.
“Especially once you get out of the crowded capital, I did not expect it to be so hazy but Dhaka’s pollution can sometimes be the worst in the world!
“The rest of the country has so much natural beauty. Sylhet’s tea plantations, home to the oldest on the sub-continent, is so refreshing even though I did not visit during the rainy season.
“Hands-down the best tea I have ever had in my life. But my favourite place to visit was undoubtedly Cox’s Bazar: there’s nothing quite like having a fresh lobster catch and enjoying the fresh sea breeze in the warm sun.
“The cherry on top of the cake was spending my birthday at the beach in Cox’s Bazar and bumping into Youtubers I follow while they were filming, a Romanian couple who travel around the world and just happened to be there in the same place at the same time!”
Getting the chance to see all levels of the healthcare system in Bangladesh was eye opening for Lois.
During her time there, she shadowed community health workers on house visits and hospital consultations.
She added that despite how busy all the staff were - issues exacerbated by understaffing and a growing patient list - she was never rushed and always offered time as well as respect.
She added: “Even when visiting the busiest children’s hospital in Dhaka, the staff took the time to show me around, answer all my questions, offer me tea and talk about my research. The level of hospitality there is really unmatched as people go above and beyond and are proud to show you their country.
“I wanted to get a better sense of how the health system works when a child presents with suspected pneumonia: who do the parents speak to first? How does the referral system work? What are the barriers to receiving adequate care?
“It was great to finally be able to carry out this work, as the pandemic had delayed this trip and it had felt like a big piece of the puzzle was missing. Having that personal context is a really important part of understanding what you’re writing about.
“I was struck by the fact that Bangladeshi people work so hard out of love - for their families and their communities. And it was really cool to be able to put faces to names as I met people whose papers I had been reading; Bangladesh’s research network is strong so many local experts are internationally-recognised in global health.
“Through the experience, I hoped to add more nuance to my writing and develop relationships with local experts I will interview for my thesis, which I have been able to do.
“At the end of the day, as I myself am not native to the country, it would feel irresponsible to say I fully understand the intricacies of Bangladesh’s health system as a solely UK-based researcher.
“But I want my research to be useful to local researchers and also to other countries and international agencies interested in learning how Bangladesh has successfully reduced child deaths from pneumonia.
Lois has also been involved in keeping the UK population safe through her work researching the Covid-19 response as a member of the Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE) group, the Royal Society’s research action team collecting emerging data.
Well before the mask mandate, she contributed to a DELVE report on mask use for the general public, which was provided to the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) back in April 2020.
On this, she said: “It’s been amazing to be a part of all this research in real-time and how to minimise its impact on our health. I find global health governance and policy fascinating as people who make decisions can have the greatest impact on public health, so producing research to inform policymakers has been very rewarding for me.”
But on whether she will continue her career in academia, she was hesitant, saying that a number of obstacles are placed in front of young professionals like herself in the industry.
On whether she will remain in academia, she said: “We’ll have to wait and see!
“Unfortunately although I love academia and teaching students, there are many problems with job security, unmanageable workload and recently some very damaging pension cuts for staff.
“So it’s looking much less attractive to early-career researchers like myself. I share my solidarity to those that have been striking at universities all over the UK.
“I will definitely continue in global health and would really enjoy working more hands-on on global health projects and maybe even some consulting work. But once I’ve handed in my thesis I look forward to sleeping for at least a month!”
Lois thanked her supportive supervisors and added that she was “extremely grateful for the funding and the opportunities to study my chosen subject.”
