The research component of IHCoR-Africa consists of three linked work packages and we have assembled a multi-disciplinary hypertension research group to address the issues identified in the work packages.

The first work package, uses qualitative and health systems approaches to understand the experiences, needs, and practices across all levels of health care (individual, organisational, and health system) for hypertension management in rural Kenya and the Gambia.

In parallel with the first work package, our second work package is using quantitative and epidemiological tools to understand the prevalence of hypertension, and test new methods for diagnosing and risk stratifying people with hypertension in rural settings.

Finally, we will bring together the outputs of these two work packages to co-create a novel care package for managing hypertension in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

All research activities will take place in two rural settings, one each in the Gambia and Kenya.