An international collaboration on adolescent's health situation in Zambia, Tanzania and Norway.

The partners of the present pre-project want to enhance knowledge and build capacity in youth health across all three partner institutions. This will be done by a) disseminating of updated knowledge on adolescent's physical, mental, and social health through 2 PhD projects based on data collected in the population-based Lusaka Fit Futures Study in Zambia in 2024, b) facilitating research through 2 PhD projects and promote high-quality services in response to injuries through a Spinal Cord Injury Registry at KCMC, which is a referral hospital with a specialized unit for traumatic spinal cord injuries in Tanzania c) establishment of MSc programs in physiotherapy at the south partner universities in Zambia and in Tanzania. The north partner's research group “Public Health and Rehabilitation” (FFR) holds expertise in population-based studies, patient’s registries and training of physiotherapists at MSc level and will support the research activities and supervision of the project’s PhD students. Lusaka Fit Futures Study and the Spinal Cord Injury Registry represent classical epidemiological research. To enhance the main projects' ability to provide new knowledge directly to stakeholders, bridging epidemiology with implementation, public involvement through strong end-user groups are needed. Relevant partners are formal representatives from the four participating governmental secondary schools in the Lusaka Fit Futures Study where the general adolescent population attend. In conjunction to the Spinal Cord Registry, NGOs such as the Atlas Alliance or other associations supporting young disabled people offer opportunities for important end-user groups. Funding for this pre-project will be used to identify and establish local partnerships outside the research sector in Lusaka in Zambia and in the Kilimanjaro and Arusha Regions of Tanzania, including involvement of the respective physiotherapy associations.