By Hauwa M. Sani, Project Manager, AKTH and Teris Taylor, Associate Program Manager, VUMC
The Vanderbilt-Nigeria Biostatistics Training Program (VN-Biostat) seeks to create a cohort of highly skilled Nigerian biostatisticians who can lead and supervise high-level biostatistics activities for HIV research studies in West Africa. With this goal in mind, The Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH), in collaboration with Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Bayero University Kano (BUK), organized a workshop on Survival Analysis with R Statistical Software and pre-workshop training to familiarize attendees with the statistical software. The pre-workshop occurred on May 31st and June 1st, 2024, in the Mathematical Department’s computer laboratory at Bayero University Kano (BUK). Professor Nafiu Hussaini introduced the R statistical software to the group to create a baseline for all workshop participants. Our 2023 VN-Biostat scholars, Ibrahim Yusuf Ibrahim and Abdurrahman Abdulhamid, supported and facilitated with Professor Nafiu during the preworkshop. Thirty-three biostatisticians from various institutions across Nigeria participated.
The opening ceremony was held on June 3rd, where the Vice Chancellor, Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas, and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academics, Professor Sani Muhammad Gumel, welcomed the faculty to Kano and thanked them for the fruitful collaboration between Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) and BUK. He particularly thanked Professor Muktar Aliyu, Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, for his great contribution to Bayero University in bringing training and research grants to the institution. The collaboration between Vanderbilt, AKTH, and BUK has been very fruitful. The 13-year collaboration has increased AKTH/BUK’s capacity in research and will continue with the VN-Biostat-trained biostatisticians.
The academic part of the workshop began in the afternoon with the participants introducing themselves. The academic workshop covered the following topics:
- Survival data
- Censored data
- Kaplan-Meier estimation
- Two-sample comparisons
- Power calculations
- Cox proportional hazards models
- Clinical trials studies
Participants were given exercises at the end of each day to maximize knowledge retention. Each facilitator encouraged participants to actively engage and ask questions, creating opportunities for hands-on, practical application of knowledge.
The workshop was primarily facilitated by Dr. Bryan Shepard (VUMC), Dr. Ben French (VUMC), Dr. Muktar Aliyu (VUMC), and Dr. Nafiu Husain (BUK) with the help of 2022-2023 VN-Biostat scholars Ibrahim Yusuf Ibrahim and Abdurrahman Abdulhamid. A joint closing ceremony was held for both VN-Biostat and the concurrent workshop on GIS sponsored by the Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV and NCDs (V-BRCH) training program, anchored by Dr. Ibraheem Karaye (GIS Workshop lead faculty), Professor Mahmoud Sani (V-BRCH) and Dr. Muktar Aliyu. He introduced the dignitaries, including CMD Professor Auwal Umar Gajida, who gave closing remarks. The workshop ended on June 7th with the presentation of certificates to all participants.
This work is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) and the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number D43TW012268.
