Guatemala Team
Contact: m.heal.guatemala@umich.edu
Today
The team determined that upper respiratory infections, hygiene, maternal health and diagnostics were the areas in which they observed severe health inequities. They formulated needs statements and problem statements based on their observations in each of these areas both while in country and while in the states. Then, they began the process of narrowing down which need they would address with a device they engineered. They evaluated each needs statement based on how interested the team would be in pursuing that need, the capability of the students to engineer a device to address this need, and the incidence of that need in country. Now, the team has an updated list of ten needs statements and they have begun a literature review of each of these statements. The next steps are to evaluate the needs again based on different criteria – the team hopes to narrow down the list to only 3 statements. Their goal is to travel to Guatemala in the summer of 2016 with a prototype.
History
The Guatemala Project Team is the result of M-HEAL’s first ever Service Abroad Needs Assessment trip to Antigua, Guatemala. 16 students traveled to Guatemala for one week and visited schools and clinics as part of a mobile medical campaign. They were accompanied by a doctor who provided check-ups to the children and adults and prescribed medication for their various ailments. The students assisted the doctor by distributing anti-parasitic medication, tooth brushes, toothpaste and giving short presentations about how to practice good hygiene. Additionally, the students collected data about the health inequities present in these schools and clinics by performing interviews with the doctor, medical correspondent, and by observing the doctor while he gave check-ups to the children. Each night, the students would collaborate and discuss their observations in an effort to develop directed questions for interviews. Their goal was to determine which health inequities were most prevalent, and which they could address once they returned to Ann Arbor.
