The month of September 2020 saw the four-week conduct of the 2nd Social Health Writing Fellowship by the UST Research Center for Social Sciences and Education – Social Health Studies Research Interest Group, Nagoya City University, and Access Health International.
A total of thirty-two fellows from different heathcare and educational institutions in the Philippines, including the Philippine General Hospital, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Philippine Orthopedic Center, University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines–Diliman, Los Baños, and Manila, De La Salle University, De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Holy Angel University, University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center, Inc., and Philippine Science High School, took part in the fellowship, with one fellow from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia).
This year’s Conveners were UST’s Maria Carinnes P. Alejandria, PhD (who also introduced fellows to Social Health Research and conducted a demonstrated of the qualitative data analysis software MAXQDA), Nagoya City University’s Miki Enoki, PhD (who spoke about the case of Tibetan refugees in India), and Access Health International Founder Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III, who facilitated the workshop on “Practical Understanding of the Landscape of Social Health Research.”
Joining the conveners in introducing Social Health to fellows were: Carnegie Mellon University’s Noah Theriault, PhD (Principles of Collaborative Research for Social Justice); Nagoya City University’s Prof. Michiyo Higuchi (Migrant Health Issues) and Dr. Reginald Salonga (Healthcare for the Homeless People in Nagoya City, Japan and Training Workshop on Crafting Proposals for Grant-in-aids); Access Health International’s Dr. Emmanuel Yujuico (Doing Health Policy and Systems Research); National Research Council of the Philippines’s Dr. Isidro Sia (Research Opportunities in Traditional Health and Medicine); The Forum for Family Planning and Development, Inc.’s Chi Laigo Vallido, who spoke about the reproductive health law; and UST’s Dr. Florence Co-Navidad, who spoke about research ethics as applied to social health research.
Now on its second year, the fellowship aims to build a good number of researchers who will investigate the interplay of health, culture, and society. UST’s efforts in social health research are led by Alejandria, who is the Social Health Studies Research Interest Group Lead at the Research Center for Social Sciences and Education. With her in the team are Prof. Ma. Minerva P. Calimag, MD, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Florence C. Navidad, EdD, Asst. Prof. Jay P. Jazul, MS, Asst. Prof. Carol Geraldine Pablo, MS, Asst. Prof. Karen Sagun-Ongtangco, MRS, MSOT, Mr. Charles Bermejo, MSOT. In 2017, the group launched the Journal of Social Health, a biannual peer-reviewed open-access journal.
