Field Placement: Helen Keller International
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Preceptor: Gudrun Stallkamp, Taskeen Chowdury, and Dr. Meerjady Sabrina Flora
Student Name: Rotrease Regan-Yates
Year: 2004

As partial fulfillment of the requirements for my Master of Public Health degree, I completed a 10 week internship in Bangladesh. My interests are varied, but center on women’s health, reproductive health and international health topics. I wanted to work on a reproductive health topic as well as gain an understanding of what working abroad would be like. I wanted to use my internship to develop skills that were new to me. I particularly wanted to focus on data collection and data analysis.

I was fortunate to have been able to work for Helen Keller International, Bangladesh, which is a division of Helen Keller Worldwide. Helen Keller International (HKI) is among the oldest nonprofit international development organizations devoted to fighting and treating avoidable blindness. My original scope of work included conducting an analysis on a subset of data from HKI’s Nutritional Surveillance Project (NSP). The NSP monitors nutrition, health and food security of households throughout Bangladesh, and provides nationally representative data that is very useful in guiding policy. The subset that I was to work on included maternal health indicators and several variables that can be used to evaluate governmental programs that have been implemented in certain regions throughout Bangladesh. In June 2003, HKI inserted an in-depth maternal health module into its questionnaire. The data obtained from this period of collection, had not yet been analyzed by HKI staff and I was very excited to work on this relatively new aspect of their surveillance project. I was to write up a summary of the analysis for publication for one of HKI’s informational bulletins.

As it turned out, the analysis was not able to be completed and I developed a revised scope of work which consisted of designing a new maternal health module that would be integrated into the NSP. Working on the design of a new questionnaire was challenging because of limitations of time and my limited experience in questionnaire design. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and enjoyed having a role in the development of something that would be of use in ascertaining information that would help improve the health of mothers in Bangladesh. In working on the new questionnaire, I used skills that I had learned in my core CHS courses and I was pleased to put that education to use in the field.

The country of Bangladesh is faced with many challenges. Political and health-related challenges are great. I found working in Bangladesh to be intense at times, but I also found it rewarding. There is a great need within the country and I believe that anyone who is interested in Public Health would find a suitable project with any of the numerous organizations that work in the country.

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