# Infectious Disease in East Africa: A Behavioral and Economic Research Collaborative (IDEA-BERC)

> **NIH NIH D43** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2021 · $239,150

## Abstract

Project Summary
While technological innovation has traditionally been considered essential in the fight against infectious
diseases, recent outbreaks of the Ebola and Zika viruses have revealed a compelling need to integrate insights
from social science to help control potential epidemics and pandemics. It is essential to understand how
clinicians, patients, and communities make economic and social decisions about health care and infectious
disease risk—particularly in the context of poverty, which significantly affects human decision-making.
 To address these challenges, the Infectious Disease in East Africa: A Behavioral and Economic
Research Collaborative (IDEA-BERC) will offer rigorous, regionally-tailored training in implementation research
applied to infectious disease challenges. The 5-year program includes medium-term training for 12-15 doctoral
and post-doctoral East African researchers, who will be equipped— through coursework, mentored field
research, and curriculum development— to address the social, behavioral, and economic dimensions of
infectious disease. Trainees' research projects will focus on one of 4 themes (i.e. health incentives,
information, pricing, and service delivery) applied across a range of topics, from diarrheal diseases and
helminth infections, to malaria and sexually transmitted infections.
 Trainees will subsequently return to their home nations to conduct research under ongoing mentorship
by UC Berkeley faculty and East African peer mentors. They will join a tight network of peer researchers at
IDEA-BERC's three partner East African research institutions: the African Population Health Research Center,
University of Nairobi and the University of Rwanda--all of which are eager to develop capacity in this promising
interdisciplinary area. As part of IDEA-BERC, these partners will carry out at least 8 short-term trainings related
to implementation science, reaching more than 200 participants, and focused on complementary research
skills like Grant Writing, Big Data, and Literature Reviews as they relate to implementation research.
 Unique to the program are its rigorous standards across a range of quantitative and qualitative social
sciences—focusing not only on observational research and model development (areas in which many East
African researchers already excel), but on scientific evaluation of interventions to improve infectious disease-
related behaviors. In the long term, IDEA-BERC will create a robust regional network of investigators and
institutions with the technical capacity and research infrastructure to inform the design of government and
multi-lateral infectious disease control efforts. Regional capacity will be further built via focused investments in
South-South networking and convening opportunities, including an annual regional conference and mini-grants
to promote the teaching of implementation research methods. These activities will ensure that the trainees
develop into a sustainable scientific ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10115834
- **Project number:** 5D43TW010529-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** EDWARD ANDREW MIGUEL
- **Activity code:** D43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $239,150
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-04-05 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10115834

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10115834, Infectious Disease in East Africa: A Behavioral and Economic Research Collaborative (IDEA-BERC) (5D43TW010529-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10115834. Licensed CC0.

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