Dr Ashish Shrestha, PhD Fellow at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and senior research fellow at HERD International, reports from the training of researchers being mobilized in the two study sites in Nepal.
Research is a powerful tool to bridge the gap between practice and policy. It allows us to move beyond assumptions by providing contextual evidence of ground realities, especially at the local level. For the Resilient and Equitable Health Workforce to Address Climate Threats (REACT) study, conducting research on climate vulnerabilities and systems resilience is a crucial step to strengthening the responsiveness of the health workforce against health impacts of climate crisis.
To prepare for baseline data collection, HERD International conducted a six-day enumerator training program in Ghorahi Sub-Metropolitan City from January 21 to 26, 2026. The training brought together 18 enumerators, 9 from each of our study sites of Chandannath Municipality in Jumla District and Ghorahi in Dang District. As public health professionals tasked with collecting and reporting data, enumerators play a vital role in evidence generation. They need a good understanding of protocol and ethics related to data collection. Beyond that, enumerators also need to be sensitive to the people they encounter, their lives, their stories.
The opening session of the training was formally chaired by the Deputy Mayor of Ghorahi Sub-Metropolitan City, with the municipal Health Section Chief and District Health Office representatives in attendance as well. Their presence demonstrated strong local collaboration and commitment.
Across six intensive days, enumerators were trained on digital survey tools covering data collection at health facilities, with frontline health workers and among community members. Key sessions of the training program included tablet-based data collection, ethical interviewing, collecting informed consent, climate-health linkages, and mock interviews. Each session drew great interest from the participants, and sparked rich discussion and reflection from the group.
At the end of the session, the research team assured the enumerators of timely support and guidance whenever required. Overall, the young public health researchers tasked with this pivotal role expressed excitement and enthusiasm for going into the field, despite the numerous challenges they will undoubtedly face.
Our trained teams are now in the field. In Dang, they will cover 10 of 23 public health facilities, interviewing around 250 health workers and 200 community members. In Jumla, all 10 public facilities will be included, with the same targets of health workers and community members. Through difficult terrain and temperatures, our enumerators will help collect the data that will ultimately inform the co-creation of relevant interventions for the health workforce facing the ever-evolving challenges brought about by the impacts of climate change in health.
