In this episode we hear from Dr. Chido Dziva Chikwari, an Epidemiologist from Zimbabwe about her work and career journey in public health for the past 9 years.
We talked about:
Chido’s current roles and how long she has been doing health research work
Chido’s background and career journey and how she ended up doing the work she does now
How she ended up doing an Master’s degree in Epidemiology and what influenced her choices
The importance of career guidance and the right vocabulary in career decision making
What is an epidemiologist and what do they do?- With examples
The things she likes about working in Epidemiology and research
How she has used her skills to pivot to different program areas over the years
Her research project on increasing access and uptake of HIV testing for children in Zimbabwe that she conducted as part of her PhD
How the findings from her research work became relevant when COVID-19 broke out in 2019
How we are going to make a movie on Chido’s Doctoral research
What are Chido’s top favorite reasons she likes about working in public health research
The value and importance of having a good community of people to work with
What public health means to Chido
For the good of everybody
What good for everyone includes and entails from access, universal health coverage, priority populations, COVID-19 global response
The importance of meeting people where they are in public health interventions eg. COVID-19 vaccines and prevention
Chido’s advice to young people and all people of all ages on career paths
What Chido knows now about the field of public health that wishes she had known or understood earlier
Public Health is a lot of work?
Where is the money in Public health? Is there money in public health work?
Career advice and tips are relevant throughout the lifecourse
Things change, career pivots happen, life happens
Check out https://www.thruzim.org/ for all the research work