MEET! Anne Abio − Department of Clinical Medicine
Anne Abio
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku. My work involves around child and adolescent mental health, injuries and violence, epidemiology, public health, and data analysis in health-related research.
I am from Uganda and have vast work and research experience from the East African region. Furthermore, my current research focuses on mortality as a result of injuries in the Republic of Seychelles. Previously, I have also acquired different experiences from research or work environments in different countries, for instance, in Tanzania, Luxembourg, Finland and Germany. Each of these experiences have in turn shaped my career over time and have contributed to my interest in connecting with other research partners.
The Global South is an area with emerging economies and great potential. Besides, just being emerging economies, partnering and collaborating with the Global South is often rewarding. This is because we are often able to learn new ideas from each other and find ways to move forward, professionally, individually or as a team. Of course, there is often variation in the situations in the different countries. However, it is possible to learn best practices in one country that can be modified depending on the contexts in our respective projects and environments.
To create a more equal and sustainable world, it is important to partner and provide training and capacity building from partners where it is needed, like the Global South. I was a beneficiary of the capacity building program organised by the World Health Organisation EDCTP/TDR program. This program contributed and strengthened the path towards my doctoral studies, with support from my mentors. This is an example that such opportunities provide avenues to enhance skills of partners from the Global South as well as build confidence to take up leadership and mentorship roles eventually. Each person, whose skills have been enhanced is able to contribute towards enhancing and providing guidance to other interested mentees, especially from their respective areas of origin.
I am currently interested in partnering and collaborating with fellow researchers in epidemiology research and working on research projects. For instance, I have been able to collaborate with other researchers from Germany and United Kingdom, with an aim of producing research outputs jointly. I hope that these partnerships are and will be the beginning of working relationships that will also extend to the Global South, for example to Uganda or any other similar regions. New partnerships are also welcome.
