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The month of June celebrates Pride Month worldwide. The LGBTQ+ community are a key population affected by TB and whose needs have not been adequately met. Despite this, the community continues to be pioneers in advocacy for health and human rights, education, and stigma reduction efforts. Join us in celebrating pride month to honour the strength and inspirations drawn from the LGBTQ+ community.

SSHIFTB contributors' publications related to TB in the LGBTQ+ community.

The WHO has released a first-of-its-kind guidance on how to generate evidence on novel TB treatments, explicitly calling for social science evidence on equity, cost, feasibility, acceptability, and user values. SSHIFTB co-lead Nora Engel was involved in the writing team, particularly the generation of qualitative evidence, in consultation with a broader group of experts and representatives.

The Guidance on evidence generation on new regimens for tuberculosis treatment advises researchers, developers, funders, and other actors engaged in the global TB response about how evidence should be generated to optimally inform WHO guideline development groups that decide on novel treatment regimens. It includes key messages for areas such as trial design, selection criteria, outcome choice, sample size, economic considerations, and how to investigate and address GRADE evidence-to-action criteria for equity, feasibility, acceptability, and user values, including through qualitative research.

This guidance promises to build a broader and stronger knowledge base for policy development which can ultimately lead to stronger recommendations. Social sciences are key to this endeavour and this report offers a useful tool for advocating to strengthen that role. At SSHIFTB we look forward to innovative models of integrating social science approaches into or alongside future TB treatment trials and other studies.

Access resource here

The Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP) is launching Phase 3 of our Fellowship Programme to begin in May 2022. Funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Wellcome Trust, SSHAP is looking for future leaders in social science to be able apply their knowledge to humanitarian emergencies in a locally relevant way.

The Fellowship will include:

• 1:1 mentoring with a SSHAP expert
• Tailored professional training programme (including network mapping and communications skills)
• Opportunities to learn from peers and share experiences
• Forums to shape discourse and dialogue
• Support in developing an operational briefing to be published and promoted via SSHAP channels

Eligibility

To be eligible for the Fellowship you must:

• Be a national of and currently living in a lower- or middle-income country.
• Be either 1) a social scientist with research experience or 2) a public health or humanitarian response practitioner in a position to influence design and/or rollout of humanitarian activities.
• We will also ask all applicants to provide one referee.

Dates and duration

• 2 May 2022 – 29 July 2022 (approximately one day per week over 3 months)
• Final workshop to be held in December 2022 with Fellows from previous phases
• All stages of this Fellowship – including the final workshop – will be held online.

Honorarium

Each Fellow will receive an honorarium of £2,000.

To apply

Complete the online application form.

Closing date: 28 March 2022, 22:00 GMT

Applicants will be informed of the result of their applications by email by the middle of April.