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. 2021 Aug;6(8):e006454.
doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006454.

The Chronic Kidney Disease in Africa (CKD-Africa) collaboration: lessons from a new pan-African network

Cindy George  1 , Suzaan Stoker  2 , Ikechi Okpechi  3   4   5 , Mark Woodward  6   7 , Andre Kengne  2   8 ; CKD-Africa Collaboration
Collaborators, Affiliations

The Chronic Kidney Disease in Africa (CKD-Africa) collaboration: lessons from a new pan-African network

Cindy George et al. BMJ Glob Health. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global public health problem, seemingly affecting individuals from low-income and-middle-income countries (LMICs) disproportionately, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the growing evidence pointing to an increasing prevalence of CKD across Africa, there has not been an Africa-wide concerted effort to provide reliable estimates that could adequately inform health services planning and policy development to address the consequences of CKD. Therefore, we established the CKD in Africa (CKD-Africa) Collaboration. To date, the network has curated data from 39 studies conducted in 12 African countries, totalling 35 747 participants, of which most are from sub-Saharan Africa. We are, however, continuously seeking further collaborations with other groups who have suitable data to grow the network. Although many successful research consortia exist, few papers have been published (with none from Africa) detailing the challenges faced and lessons learnt in setting up and managing a research consortium. Drawing on our experience, we describe the steps taken and the key factors required to establish a functional collaborative consortium among researchers in Africa. In addition, we present the challenges we encountered in building our network, how we managed those challenges and the benefit of such a collaboration for Africa. Although the CKD-Africa Collaboration is focused primarily on CKD research, many of the lessons learnt can be applied more widely in public health research in LMICs.

Keywords: epidemiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The members of the Writing Committee declare that they have no competing interests. No support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of African countries enrolled in the CKD-Africa Collaboration. The individual participant data (IPD) ranges from 300 participants to 12 247 participants per country. The nine shaded countries represent those for which IPD are currently available. The shading from light blue to dark blue represents the increasing number of IPD available per country, thus, the darkest shading represents the countries with the most available IPD. CKD, chronic kidney disease.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Average contribution of each subpopulation to the overall number of studies enrolled in the CKD-Africa Collaboration. CKD, chronic kidney disease.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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