Prof. Trudie Lang

Dr. Elizabeth Allen

• Education

MPharm (Pharmacy), University of Nottingham 2017

• Previous experience

Pharmacist, University Hospitals of North Midlands, Stoke-on-Trent, July 2017- Sep 2018

Research Internship, School of Pharmacy,
University of Nottingham, June 2016 – Aug 2016

Overview:

Undertaking effective drug safety monitoring can be particularly challenging in low-resource settings due to a lack of infrastructure, weak regulatory systems and limited access to training and education opportunities. This is especially evident across the African continent, which has experienced a slow emergence onto the global pharmacovigilance (PV) landscape, and which continues to contribute an extremely small proportion of global adverse drug reaction data. Although previous research into building PV capacity in low resource-settings has highlighted the need for improved education and training, the sustainability and inherited value of previous solutions can be questioned. Novel solutions to improve PV activities and promote PV capacity building are needed across Africa to address the deficit in drug safety activities.

By adopting an action-research mixed-methods approach, I am aiming to harness the membership of an online PV hub, globalpharmacovigilance.org, and explore its potential to work together in a ‘community of practice’ on specific challenges facing PV in Africa.  I am inviting the parties to work together to identify a priority area for improvement within African PV, and then to identify or develop relevant training, guidance and tools using the online environment as the workspace for discussions, networking and dissemination of outputs. It is envisaged that these efforts will lead to an improvement of practice within the priority area of African PV.

• Can building a community of practice improve pharmacovigilance in Africa, European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health 2019

• Year 2 Prize Winner, NDM Graduate Student Prizes 2019
• Assisted in the development of The Global Health Network’s ‘COVID-19 Research Implementation and Knowledge Hub’