As a regional SAHARA office, the Southern Africa office is responsible for networking and multi-country and multi-site research collaboration in 14 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.

The staff of the regional office includes a regional co-ordinator, two Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellows, and one SADC Doctoral fellow.

The regional office is hosted in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health (SAHA) unit of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria, South Africa. SAHA has pioneered research on the social determinants of health, not only with regard to HIV and AIDS, but also for public health in general. This research goes beyond medical interventions and strives to address health problems at their source, namely at the social and population level.

SAHA focuses on these areas:

• The key socio-cultural, political, economic and demographic determinants that increase or reduce vulnerability to HIV infection.
• Aspects that facilitate or hinder change in risky behaviour, enable or delay progress towards care, and prevent or enable mitigation of the impact of HIV and AIDS.
• Epidemiology, strategic research and health policy.
• Health system issues necessary for disease control within a social development context.

For more see www.hsrc.ac.za/SAHA.phtml

Go to the Contacts page to get our telephone numbers or send us an email.