Digital tools to understand multiple health problems in African communities
Official title: MADIVA (Multimorbidity in Africa: Digital innovation, visualisation and application)
Funded at Wits Health Consortium (Pty), LTD · NIH-11395803 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project uses clinic records, long-term health surveys, and genetics to learn how people in African communities develop and live with multiple health conditions.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Wits Health Consortium (Pty), LTD NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Parktown, South Africa) |
| Project start | September 15, 2021 |
| Project end | June 30, 2026 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $272,646 |
| NIH project number | 3U54TW012077-05S1 |
| Project ID | NIH-11395803 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are residents of the participating sites (notably Nairobi, Kenya and Bushbuckridge, South Africa) and people with two or more chronic or infectious conditions or linked clinic records in those areas.
✕Less likely to help
People living outside the participating communities or those without linked digital health or genomic records are unlikely to get direct benefits from this hub's activities.
What this research studies
Researchers will combine large, long-running health datasets, clinic and lab records, and available genomic information from urban and rural sites in Kenya and South Africa. Teams will use data-science, visualization, and digital methods to link fragmented records and reveal patterns of co-occurring infections, injuries, and chronic diseases over time. Partners including local universities and research centers and industry will build tools to make these patterns easier for clinicians and public-health teams to see and use. The hub aims to turn messy, incomplete data into actionable insights for care and planning.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help health workers identify people with multiple conditions earlier and tailor care and public-health plans to reduce combined illness burden.
How similar studies have gone: Similar data-linkage and digital-analysis approaches have yielded useful multimorbidity insights elsewhere, but applying them at this scale across African population cohorts is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
Wits Health Consortium (Pty), LTD
Parktown, South Africa Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Hazelhurst, Scott — Wits Health Consortium (Pty), LTD
- Study coordinator: Hazelhurst, Scott
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.