PASS International provides social science research for clinical trials. Offering focused ethnography, training courses, consultancies and backstopping, we complement your research’s implementation in the field.
Partners in clinical trials
Field Research and Focused Ethnography
Human and socio-cultural factors directly influence clinical trials' effectiveness and outcomes. Understanding the local setting, social structure and cultural context is a relevant but often neglected part of trial research and often a key factor for its success. How do socio-cultural factors influence trial participation? How can trial results be interpreted? What are the possible applications of the trial's intervention in non-trial settings. These are some of the questions we commonly target.
PASS International carries out field research tailored to your needs:
• Short term assignments targeted at specific research questions
• Long term participation as partners in consortia
Consultancy and Backstopping | Training Courses
PASS International provides additional support and regular follow-ups to reinforce clinical trials. We evaluate the current state of interventions in relation to acceptability at the community and institutional levels; we investigate and determine potential obstacles and limiting factors for successful implementation; and, provide solid recommendations for project administration adjustment, based on detailed research and on site participant observation.
PASS International offers consultancy services relating to our areas of expertise.
Our services include:
• Organisational strengthening: Capacitate your team to better handle foreign contexts and interaction with local staff.
• Participatory development: How to improve cooperation and participation of local communities in clinical trials.
• Enhanced internal management: Improve local management of your programme's implementation in the field.
Clinical trials with PASS International participation
Gabon | Acceptability of Intermittent Preventive Treatment for Malaria
Partners: Hospital Clinic Barcelona, Medical Research Unit Lambarene, Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Tubingen University, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Communities' acceptability of intermittent preventive treatment in infants using Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine as well as the feasibility of the policy was researched in Lambaréné, Gabon. The study was part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded multi-country proposal “Acceptability of Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Infants (IPTi) for the control of malaria and anaemia” linked to the IPTi efficacy trials carried out under the auspices of the (BMGF funded) IPTi Consortium in Gabon (Lambaréné), Kenya (Kisumu) and Tanzania (Kilimanjaro), as well as implementation studies carried out by UNICEF in Malawi and Ghana.
Burlkina Faso | Malaria Prevention in Pregnancy
Partners: Prins Leopold Institute for Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Ministry of Health Burkina Faso
In rural communities of Burkina Faso, PASS International evaluates the
health promotion campaign designed to promote intermittent preventive
treatment for malaria prevention in pregnancy and makes
recommendations for future implementation and related public health
interventions.
Vietnam | New Interventions for Forest Malaria Control: Insecticidal Hammocks
Partners: Prins Leopold Institute for Tropical Medicine Antwerp, National Institute for Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology Vietnam
Despite improved medication and insecticide-treated bed nets, the
continuing burden of malaria urges the implementation of new and
complementary prevention methods. Insecticide treated hammocks could
provide extra protection for forest malaria in Vietnam. PASS
International evaluated community perspectives on the use of
insecticidal hammocks and their effectiveness for malaria control in non-trial conditions.
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