Public Health

Vak International's public health division is headed by Dr Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist with years of experience in a wide array of research and application domains, including:


        1. HIV/AIDS
        2. Tuberculosis
        3. diabetes
        4. pandemic planning
        5. assisted reproduction
        6. disease surveillance
        7. musculoskeletal disease
        8. systematic reviews
        9. health promotion
        10. mental health
        11. international health
        12. bioterrorism


The public health services that Vak International offers include:

  1. Pandemic planning. Pandemic influenza is almost a certainty, and will affect every region's public health system, emergency response system and media relations. At the organizational level, employee travel may be curtailed and projects severely affected. Vak International can help you understand the underlying science of pandemic disease, keep you up to date on current knowledge, including prevention and treatment options, and develop communications strategies and products to help you help your people to understand what's going on.

  2. Disease surveillance. Vak's principals have experience in designing low-tech disease surveillance strategies for low income nations. We also offer training in surveillance theory and methodology, both theoretical and practical.

  3. Systematic reviews. In the hierarchy of evidence, the systematic review is considered the modern gold standard, as it distills all existing studies into a comprehensive exploration of all available evidence surrounding a given topic. Vak's principals have produced several such reviews for companies and government agencies.

  4. Communication. An under-appreciated aspect of public health is the extent to which policies and research findings are communicated. Vak International provides lectures, op-eds, and knowledge translation strategies and products for your public health and international development needs.

  5. Research. The collection and analysis of both population health and clinical data are strengths of Vak International's public health team. We can help you at any stage of the research process: design, data collection, analysis, interpretation or dissemination. In addition, we offer workshops and training sessions on basic research and evaluation methodology.



Some examples of Vak's services to clients:

    1. The design of a low-tech Tuberculosis surveillance option for the nation of Guyana, and the teaching of that strategy to local non-specialists.

    2. Based on existing data, the creation of an annual report on communicable diseases for the Haldimand-Norfolk region of Canada.

    3. For the Canadian Public Health Association, using demographic data to develop a profile of Canadian family doctors for the purposes of developing a targeted continuing medical education course on pandemic influenza.

    4. For an agency of the Canadian government, the creation of two systematic reviews on the effectiveness of certain pharmaceuticals as prophylaxes against avian flu.

    5. Presenting the history and social science of bioterrorism to the undergraduate community of the University of Florida.