Uganda Society For Health Scientists

Uganda Society For Health Scientists, a non-profit organization based in Kampala, Uganda, operates exclusively as a sub-recipient on federal research grants, with no prime contract or grant awards in its footprint. The organization assists Michigan State University as the prime grantee on longitudinal neurocognitive and immunological research studies conducted among Ugandan children and adults, providing study design support, institutional review submissions, field implementation, and local administrative coordination.

The organization's customer base is concentrated entirely within the National Institutes of Health. The Department of Health and Human Services National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has awarded or sub-awarded six grants to Uganda Society For Health Scientists, while the National Institute on Aging accounts for two awards. Combined obligated funding across all eight federal sub-awards totals $1.4 million over the past thirty-one months.

Uganda Society For Health Scientists' representative work centers on two parallel research programs under Michigan State University's prime leadership. Five sub-awards, spanning September 2022 through June 2025, support a neurocognitive composite-risk-index study that tracks cognitive impairment in a longitudinal Ugandan cohort of 750 children ages 6 to 18, stratified by HIV status (perinatally HIV-infected, HIV-exposed uninfected, and HIV-unexposed uninfected). The work integrates machine-learning methods to identify risk factors including malnutrition, immune dysfunction, and viral load, with data collection at twelve-month intervals over a thirty-six-month follow-up period. Three additional sub-awards, issued in December 2023 and October and April 2025, support a parallel study of adolescent immunological and neurocognitive outcomes among youth in Kampala City Council Authority areas. In both research streams, Uganda Society For Health Scientists' site principal investigators—including Dr. Noeline Nakasujja of Makerere College of Health Sciences Department of Psychiatry and Dr. Sarah Zalwango—provide field leadership, biomarker collection and tracking expertise, and data interpretation support.

Activity has grown modestly: one award in 2022, two in 2023, three in 2024, and two in 2025 to date. The organization functions as a research implementation partner in a single prime-sub relationship with no federal contracting vehicles or BPA positions in its footprint.