Community first
Every study begins with the people it touches. We sequence outreach, language, and consent ahead of any instrument, because no measurement is meaningful unless the community it draws from has been engaged with care.
Methodology principles
Our approach to health research in East Africa.
Every study Afriscope carries follows the same five principles, regardless of the discipline or sponsor. They shape how we plan a field season in Kampala, how we recruit a community in a rural district, and how we deliver data back to a principal investigator.
Protocol fidelity
Disciplined execution of the design we are entrusted with. We treat a protocol as a contract with the participants and the science — drift and improvisation are documented, not absorbed.
Transparent reporting
The data we deliver is the data we collected. Field logs, query trails, and quality-assurance findings are part of the deliverable, so that sponsors and principal investigators can interrogate the dataset rather than only receive it.
Local rootedness
Ugandan team, Ugandan context, East African reach. Our judgement about feasibility, language, and community is grounded in living and working in the places where studies happen — not in dispatch from elsewhere.
Ethical stewardship
Consent, dignity, and confidentiality are non-negotiable. We hold these as obligations to participants first and to the research record second, and we decline work where the two would have to be traded against each other.
In practice
The principles are an order of operations, not a list. Community engagement precedes recruitment; measurement is bound by the protocol; the data is reported as it was collected — and throughout, an ethical posture toward the participant takes precedence over operational convenience.
Definitions
A short glossary.
Terms we use across this site, defined plainly so that there is no ambiguity about what we mean.
- Research execution partner
- A research organization that carries out the in-country fieldwork and operational delivery of a study designed by a sponsor or principal investigator.
- Field data collection
- The structured gathering of survey, interview, or observational data from study participants, conducted in person, by phone, or through digital instruments.
- Qualitative research
- Research methods (interviews, focus groups, ethnography) that explore meaning, experience, and context rather than measurement alone.
- Protocol fidelity
- The discipline of executing a study exactly as the approved protocol specifies, without drift or improvisation.
- Community-rooted recruitment
- Locally-led participant recruitment that begins with established community trust, language, and consent norms.
Next
Read the services, or write to us.
These principles are easier to see in the concrete work of a study. The services page lists the six capabilities we offer in support of health research across Uganda and East Africa.