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As a research and development agency primarily working in the health sector for over a decade, World Health Day – celebrated globally on April 7 marks a special significance to us. The theme for this year is ‘Beat Diabetes: Scale Up Diabetes Prevention, Strengthen Care and Enhance Surveillance’. Therefore, as we are celebrating World Health Day this week, Research Uptake and Communications Unit with the support of Information Technology Unit at HERD tested the knowledge of 31 researchers with regards to diabetes through a quiz programme organized on April 5.

We developed 15 questions with 4 options to choose from. The questions were developed into a digital form using Kobo Collect application and then installed into tablet PCs. Altogether 31 individuals participated in this quiz programme, of which most of them were public health researchers. The questions were basically about definition, types, symptoms and complication of diabetes, location of pancreas, among others. 16 HERD staff members participated in the quiz programme organized at HERD office while 15 other individuals (that comprised of 7 HERD researchers and 8 from other organizations) involved in a qualitative research training programme (jointly organized by Wellcome Trust and HERD) at Dhulikhel also participated in the quiz programme also conducted over there. The participants were given 10 minutes to complete the quiz. The results were revealed immediately within 5 minutes, as the responses were directly stored into the application software and based on the pre-set programme, the marks were calculated.

  

Participants attempting the questions during the Quiz Programme using tablets

We also awarded the participant scoring the highest marks. Bhagiman Lingden, Field Monitoring Officer at HERD obtained the highest marks (13 out of 15). Lingden was awarded with a flower vase which was presented to him by Ian Walker – Visiting Research Fellow and Specialty Registrar in Public Health working currently at HERD for a short period supporting especially in TB related projects implemented by HERD. Lingden in his short acceptance speech thanked the Research Uptake and Communications team for this innovative concept of understanding diabetes better.

Bhagiman Lingden receiving the award from Ian Walker

Some feedback was also received from the participants about organizing such a quiz programme. Deepak Joshi, Senior Officer – Research Monitoring and Evaluation at HERD viewed, “Such quiz programmes fulfill the motive of edutainment – where we enjoy and learn about various issues of public health importance at the same time.” Likewise, Ian Walker appreciated efforts put in by HERD team to link technology with public health advocacy.

HERD is organizing several events as a build up to celebrating World Health Day on April 7.

Diabetes can be BEATEN when we are UPBEAT about it!