Science Stories from Folkemødet: Realities in Rural Tanzania

Postdocs Talking

Did you know that half a million children die every year of a completely treatable disease? Can you imagine what it would be like to be pregnant or have children in a low-income country where this disease is prevalent?

This is the reality for many people all over the world. And while it is indeed preventable, malaria kills millions each year because of sparse access to health care.

Danish postdoc Line Hjort saw the extent of this when she went to a rural village in Tanzania. There, she joined a local research team studying the impact of malaria on children and pregnant women, such as malaria during pregnancy possibly leading to diabetes later in the child’s life.
Through Line’s story, we are given a tour of the Tanzanian healthcare system, where beds are scarce and access to water even scarcer. More than a third of the pregnant women in the area had malaria during pregnancy. Line and her colleagues saw an extremely high participation rate in their study, despite it being cumbersome to participate. But for parents, this was not just a study – this was a chance for healthcare. And for Line, there were a lot of important cultural perspectives to bring home to Denmark.

Join us for the second episode of Postdocs Talking recorded live at a DDEA event at Folkemødet (The Danish People’s Meeting) 2023.

About Folkemødet
Folkemødet (The People’s Meeting) is a democracy festival in June on the Danish island of Bornholm. Citizens, politicians, NGOs, businesses, and many more meet up for open debates, dialogues, and talks on society and democracy. The festival is inspired by the Swedish counterpart, Almedalsveckan.
DDEA at Folkemødet 2023
DDEA organised a storytelling event, inviting two researchers to tell their science stories. The first speaker was an American who came to Denmark to do research for the Danish society. The second speaker was a Dane who went outside of Denmark to do research for an African society. The name of this event was “Worlds Apart – Two Stories of Health Science for Society”. This is the second of these talks.

Episode info

Speaker

• Line Hjort, BRIDGE postdoctoral fellow at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen

Host

• Gretchen Repasky, Education & Networking Manager, Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy

Produced by

Gretchen Repasky, Education & Networking Manager, Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy
Published by

Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy
Editor:

Nikolai Rosler – Rosler Productions

Thanks:

Public Speaking Coach Adam Montandon from Speakers Impact Network

Katharina Herzog, Novo Nordisk A/S

Morten Dall, University of Copenhagen

Christopher Lewis, University of Copenhagen

You can find additional information about our podcasts on Podcasts | Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy (ddeacademy.dk)