#internship2015

In one of my previous posts I wrote shortly why I went to Uganda for another small internship. Here I just want to explain a little more about this.

Already before I went to Uganda I had a research question for my BA thesis, which of course was very open for changes. I knew that it probably would change when getting more information about the topic and meeting people involved in the issue. 

During my stay in Inter Aid I have made some small changes and specified my research question a bit. I want to look at how migration affects the livelihood and food security situation of young (18-35 years old) low SES refugees in Kampala. My research question is a bit inspired of the one of the Metropol research in Uganda and combined with my interest in migration.

I decided to do observational data collection. Through Inter Aid I made many observations from different levels in the organisation. I have been taking part in meetings, administrative work, counselling, trainings, activities, community visits etc. Most important of all then I have been interacting with many young refugees. Many of them coming from Congo, Rwanda, Somalia or South Sudan. On top of all my observations I have been able to do a few semi-structured interviews with some of the youths and the Executive Director of Inter Aid.

My hypothesis was that the livelihood of the refugees is highly affected because of the vulnerable situation they are in. Influenced by their terrifying experiences in their life, loosing family members and friends, running away from war and conflicts, not feeling safe, feeling discriminated and so forth. Furthermore that this would be interlinked with food insecurity.

This internship has ended for now, and the writings of the bachelor thesis are beginning to unfold. It has been a pleasant and giving internship, once again, at Nordic Laboratories. I have learned a great deal of new things, and developed my skills. 

I did not get to do interviews and movies for a number of reasons, however, I tried include the reader as much as possible in explanatory texts and pictures. 

Overall, I appreciate this experience, and I look forward to see what the future will bring.   

Finally, below are a few pictures I’d like to share. 

From the dietician’s office where she has consultations with clients. 

Above is just a sneak peak of the final product from I’ve constructed to the webinar we did (see previous blog post). This is just a trial print. The plan is that these are printed to brochures. 

The summer holidays has ended and the final days of the internship have begun. With the new school year initiated, the schedule for the workshops at KARUNA is gradually being filled and booked by both old and new schools. 

Academic & Professional Preparation

This internship has inspired several thoughts concerning a career. I am now very convinced that my future occupation involves direct interaction with the public to address the health concerns that affect members of the specific population. Having the opportunity to work with a target group and a public health issue outside my comfort zone (adolescents and substance use/abuse) during this second internship, reconfirms that my heart still is strongly committed to matters concerning minority health and health disparities in terms of alleviating imbalances among migrant populations. 

However, I intend to pursue a masters program, in order to gain a better understanding of the various dimensions of science and society, to identify social, gender, ethnic and cultural discrimination, and to develop strategies to halt these phenomena.

PhD course on systematic literature search

Last week, I have been attending another PhD short course about literature review. Else Marie Bartels, which by title is  PhD (Biophysics), DSc, Research Librarian DB, had enabled us within 3 hours to adequately look for literature. We were advised to use the København Universitetbibliotekets catalog named REX and the København Universitet webpage. Here it can be found webpages  that are hosts for databases. There exists different databases relevant for different information that we need to get. More or less everything that we have been taught is on her paper named “ How to perform a systematic search” (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1521694213000089 - If you do not have access to this please let me know and I will send you the paper)

Moreover, we have been taught how to use Reference Manager which I am using now for my citations and referencing in my BA thesis.  

D-tect meetings 

As mentioned before, D-tect (D-tecting diseases) is the project I have been working the past 3 months. I have researched if the margarine consumption during prenatal life affects the development later in life of joint disorders as peripheral arthritis and spinal arthritis. 

Recent findings had come to our attentions. It seems that our facts about the starting point of vitamin D fortification are under debate. First of all it seems that margarine was fortified with vitamin A along with vitamin D. It was assumed until now that vitamin D started in 1961 and ended in 1985, where vitamin A wad longer periods of fortification. But this theory come not to be so true, when one of my colleagues had discovered by going through very old books (only paper) and laws from 1925, 1937, 1952 and 1961. 

Right now it seems that fortification with vitamin A and D started in 1925 and it seemed not to be compulsory. In 1937 there were more laws regarding the vitamin A and D fortification (advertising, who is in charge of specifying the vitamin A and D quantities, who receives the application etc). Nevertheless, the mandatory fortification was not clearly stated and the quantities were not specified. In 1952, the law of fortification was changed and this time was specified quite specific the regime of fortification (mandatory and quantities). Therefore, my only solution to continue on this path for the BA thesis was to wait until margarine industry will confirm some of the findings and take in consideration just the termination  period ( which is clear but the subjects were to young for developing joint disorders) or milk fortification (which was only voluntary for skimmed milk). 

These aspects were under discussion for the last 2 weeks at the Research Unit for Dietary Studies. As a conclusion to this, I have decided to go for another project for my BA thesis.