Posted: 5/3/2011
A grant from Sigma Theta Tau International will help Carrie Tudor, PhD(c), MPH, RN, collect data in South Africa for her dissertation entitled “Occupational Risk Factors for TB Among Healthcare Workers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.”
Tuberculosis is the leading cause of natural death in South Africa and in the KwaZulu-Natal Province and accounts for 26 percent of all natural deaths. According to Tudor, “Healthcare workers are at an increased risk of developing TB and I hope to identify occupational risk factors that may be placing healthcare workers at greater risk to be able to later implement changes to decrease transmission risk.”
Tudor estimates that she will spend up to three months collecting data for the study in South Africa. The grant will support the costs of translating the study forms from English to Zulu.
Before pursuing a PhD in nursing, Tudor worked in global health for 10 years and traveled widely. In Myanmar, with the World Health Organization, she organized immunization campaigns against polio, measles, tetanus, and hepatitis B. In Tibet, she tested a traditional Tibetan medicine against a western medicine in the prevention of post-partum hemorrhage.