About the CREHS Cohort Study and this website

THE STUDY
The CREHS Cohort Study is an exciting, innovative research project that is being carried out in Thailand, South Africa and Kenya. The basic idea is to recruit final-year nursing students in these countries into a cohort/long-term research group and to collect information from them about their career choices and the things they value in their professional lives and working environments. This information will be useful in making recommendations about how to improve the work experiences and retention of health workers in the health systems where they are needed most.

Over the next year or so, the research will involve three key steps:

• Baseline data collection, which usually takes place in selected nursing training institutions before the students graduate. This entails the completion of several questionnaires, conducting focus group discussions and collecting participants' contact details so that they can be reached at a later stage. Baseline data collection was completed in Thailand in March 2008, is underway in South Africa and should start in Kenya at the end of the month.
  
• Cohort contact, in terms of which the researchers will contact members from time to time to verify contact details and get a very quick update on their professional situation.
• Follow up, which will involve further detailed data collection with the cohort members. This will take place approximately one year after the baseline data collection.
  

More information on the research can be obtained from any of the participating research organisations (see the list on the side of this internet page).

WHY THIS PAGE?
Over time, we hope to stay in touch with as many of the cohort members as possible. This internet page has been created to try and keep contact and to share pictures, findings from the research and general news, especially news about the lives and work experiences of the cohort members.

So, stay online and don't hesitate to send us your comments or suggestions about how this website can be improved and about what information you would like to see on it.

News that will appear on this page very soon include:

• updates about the baseline data collection in South Africa
• the first findings to emerge from the research in Thailand.