PHA

PHA Working Groups

PublicHealth.Africa (PHA) advances its mission through four core Working Groups that bring together volunteers from across Africa to support strategy, programmes, and initiatives in public health research and practice. Interested in joining? Submit your expression of interest here.

WG1: Governance, Strategy, and Sustainability

The goal of this working group is to establish a strong, inclusive governance model and guide the strategic direction and sustainability of PublicHealth.Africa. This working group will guide PHA's long-term strategic planning, identify and build partnerships that align with PHA's vision, and explore opportunities for securing funding and infrastructure support. A key priority will be to establish systems for assessing impact and adapting strategies over time.

View PHA WG1 Lead and Co-lead

WG2: Open Science and Open Publishing

The goal of this working group is to promote equitable, transparent, and inclusive open science and publishing practices in public health across Africa.

View PHA WG2 Lead and Co-lead
Key focus
  • Lead and scale the COPPHA initiative, including platform improvements and policy development
  • Support and promote open and inclusive publishing models (preprints, open peer review, open data)
  • Support and collaborate on community-led public health research on key issues in Africa and the publication of findings
  • Advocate for ethical and inclusive open science practices
  • Develop open science toolkits and resources
  • Translate open science materials for local accessibility

WG3: Open Education and Online Course Development

The goal of this working group is to enhance access to high-quality, inclusive public health education and capacity building for African researchers and professionals.

View PHA WG3 Lead and Co-lead
Key focus
  • Coordinate course development and delivery
  • Refine and deliver existing online training courses (e.g., COPPHA Peer Review and COPPHA Open Publishing)
  • Support the facilitation of COPPHA courses
  • Design and deliver new online/hybrid training courses in public health research methods, research writing and publishing for African researchers, navigating open access publishing and avoiding predatory journals for early career researchers, systematic reviews, evidence synthesis, meta-analysis, etc.
  • Design and deliver new online/hybrid courses in core public health areas (e.g., epidemiology, maternal health, communicable and non-communicable diseases)

WG4: Mentorship and Early- and Mid-Career Researchers (EMCRs) Support

The goal of this working group is to build mentorship and career development opportunities for early and mid-career African researchers and professionals.

View PHA WG4 Lead and Co-lead
Key focus
  • Create and manage a mentorship network that connects public health EMCRs with senior researchers and professionals in Africa. Match mentees with mentors across regions and disciplines
  • Create mentorship toolkits and resources
  • Develop and deliver skill-building workshops on research writing and publishing
  • Coordinate career development and research opportunities