March 4, 2026

Research Scientist Dieudonne Hakizimana receives award to improve infant health outcomes in Ethiopia

Congratulations to Dieudonne Hakizimana, Global WACh Research Scientist and PhD Candidate in the UW Department of Global Health, and collaborators of Strengthening Opportunities through Partnership in Ethiopia (SCOPE) for receiving a UW Global Innovation Fund Award for “Assessing post-trial sustainment of a faith leader–led initiative to improve newborn and infant health in Ethiopia and identifying factors influencing sustainment to inform scale-up and long-term planning.”

This award will support a rigorous post-trial assessment of SCOPE’s LAUNCH (Leading Advancements for the Uptake of Newborn and Community Health) intervention that paired Ethiopian Orthodox priests with community health workers (CHWs) to deliver newborn and infant health education to families.

The trial explored how linking religious leaders with front-line health workers may catalyze and empower local communities to improve health outcomes for newborns. Read the LAUNCH protocol paper published in September 2024.

With support from a research team from the Department of Global Health and the University of Gondar College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dieudonne will assess whether the faith leader–led priest–CHW model is sustained and what drives sustainment.

Funds will be used to train data collectors, manage field logistics including data collection among original priest–CHW pairs and complete transcription and translation for mixed-methods analysis. Without this award, follow-up would be limited to informal contact with a small, accessible subset, producing findings that cannot inform a Ministry of Health–Ethiopian Orthodox Church sustainment blueprint or a peer-reviewed manuscript.

By identifying what enables or hinders priests and community health workers from continuing joint outreach after trial funding ends, the study will provide practical steps to sustain behavior change support, including exclusive breastfeeding and other newborn care practices. The sustainment blueprint developed through this project will help the Ministry of Health and Ethiopian Orthodox Church maintain and expand the model to more communities, improving reach and equity.

Over time, sustained delivery can support healthier pregnancies, safer newborn care, and fewer preventable newborn and infant illnesses and deaths.