The TRECK Program: Trauma REsearch Capacity Building in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Project Summary/ Abstract Every year, nearly 5 million people die from injuries and hundreds of millions more sustain non-fatal injuries that require medical attention with low and middle income countries (LMICs), accounting for 90% of all injury related deaths. Reducing the burden of injury requires a quality trauma care system incorporating surveillance, prehospital and hospital based care and rehabilitation services; these systems are poor with limited services in LMICs like Tanzania. This training program will train implementation science focused trauma and injury care researchers to identify the gaps, barriers and facilitators to quality care, and adapt evidence based interventions to Tanzania setting. The project builds on Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center and Duke University’s long standing collaborations for capacity building (MEPI/HEPI, D43s) and injury research (R21 and R01) level projects. The goals of this proposal are to train 2 doctoral and 10 masters students in innovative implementation science and injury research and establish a network of injury focused stakeholders to support multi-disciplinary research in the region.