KUPUMUA project - Partnership working/Capacity building projects to prevent and treat chronic lung disease in East Africa with the Makerere University Lung Institute, Uganda

Dr Rupert Jones from the Peninsula Medical School secured GCRF funding in 2018. Read how GCRF funds were key to the research
Fresh Air project, Africa

This project focused on the following:

  • The cultural adaptation in Uganda of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) with dance, singing and music as a motivator for participation, leading to changes in the way PR is delivered in Africa.
  • Producing culturally-adapted illustration materials, which were developed in collaboration with the Ƶ Illustration students. These materials, including an animated film, were used to educate rural communities in Uganda about the dangers of biomass smoke exposure.
  • Dr Jones and his team partnered with the to link the University's MSc Global Health programme and other courses being delivered in Uganda, in partnership with .

Benefits and impacts of the project

Project collaborators

To enable us to spread our key messages, this project cemented long-term collaborations and partnerships with the following organisations:

  • Makerere Lung Institute, Kampala, Uganda.
  • District Health Office, Jinja, Uganda; UK Uganda Health Alliance.

The Kupumua project has been nominated for the of the Year by Andrew Merrington. Shortlisting is on the 10th September 2020.

Patients at a chronic lung disease rehabilitation centre in Kampala, Uganda

Next steps

  • A meeting in Uganda is planned for 2020, which will include both the Plymouth and Makerere teams, the Ministry of Health and District Health teams to discuss a nationwide roll-out of a biomass smoke education programme.
  • The Ministry of Health met recently to discuss final plans for the Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW) curriculum to be rolled out in January 2020 throughout Kenya as part of Universal Health Coverage.
  • During the next trip to Uganda, there will be follow up work for PR, looking at how the dance/singing/music element is being incorporated, including interviews with patients and stakeholders.
  • There is a larger NIHR-funded project, RECHARGE, which will use the lessons on cultural adaptation of PR in 4 fully-powered randomised control trials in Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka and India.

Fresh air image

, by Illustration student Angus Ulyett, has been adopted by as an education tool to help Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW) training following a recommendation from the . 

There are also plans to use the animation in other countries including Uganda, Cameroon and Ghana through (WHO, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Governments of Ghana, Kenya and Cameroon).