Anna Berenguera has been working at IDIAP Jordi Gol for fifteen years. Over the years she has been involved in various projects and is currently Deputy Director of the Research Area. Before that, she earned a degree in Psychology, completed a master’s degree in social science research methods at the University of Surrey, and obtained a PhD in Public Health from the University of Barcelona. And she is also a woman and the mother of an eighteen-year-old son.
Like many other professionals working at the institute, her vocation did not arise overnight. Anna began doing research at a research center linked to Hospital Clínic in Mozambique.
Your first professional experience was quite unusual, wasn’t it?
My first professional experience was at the International Health Center of Hospital Clínic, what would now be ISGlobal. There I put into practice the research knowledge I had acquired, and in 2002 we won a project funded by “la Caixa” to implement a program to prevent vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS in pregnant women in Manhiça, 30 kilometers from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. We had spent months preparing that project following all the World Health Organization manuals for Global South countries to make it as rigorous as possible. At that time, HIV prevalence in Mozambique was around 25%.
But the reality you encountered was quite different from what the manuals described, right?
Once we arrived in Manhiça, where the CISM (Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Moçambique) is located, we found strong resistance among the population to the use of HIV prevention measures. Mainly due to their colonial relationship with South Africa, people believed that the Boers (the Dutch-descended population in South Africa) had brought the disease and were transmitting it to the Black population to exterminate them, through food (red oranges), or by contaminating them in the diamond mines where 50% of Mozambique’s male population works, among other beliefs. There we understood that we could not implement any HIV/AIDS prevention program without better understanding people’s perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about HIV/AIDS and without gaining deeper knowledge of their culture.
And how did you approach this?
This is where I delved into qualitative and quantitative methodology, working together with local leaders to help us with information, communication, and dissemination of HIV/AIDS preventive measures among the population. With the whole team, we managed to implement a day hospital for people living with HIV/AIDS. The arrival of antiretroviral therapy was difficult; it was experienced very positively, but stock shortages, lack of adherence, and people’s beliefs made it challenging. However, I know that today HIV is considered a chronic disease there, as it is here. The Vertical Transmission Prevention program is still ongoing. After more than three and a half years, I returned to Barcelona and continued writing all the publications related to the Mozambique project at Hospital Clínic.
How and when did you join IDIAP Jordi Gol?
I joined IDIAPJGol in 2008. It was an institute that selected me when I was four months pregnant, something I already found to be different from other institutions. At IDIAPJGol I was hired to carry out a project for the Department of Health aimed at understanding primary, secondary, and tertiary HIV/AIDS prevention activities. They were looking for a professional profile familiar with preventive activities who could develop a set of indicators to evaluate them. I obtained the position to develop this mixed-methods project, which eventually became my doctoral thesis.
What attracted you to the institution?
What attracted me to IDIAPJGol was the possibility of doing research very closely linked to people’s real lives, especially due to its proximity to patients and primary care professionals. It seemed to me to be a research institute with great potential to conduct excellent research to improve people’s health and quality of life.
And for about nine months now, you have taken on an important new role at IDIAP Jordi Gol as Deputy Director of the Research Area. What responsibilities do you have?
My main responsibilities are to ensure that IDIAPJGol research groups have opportunities to conduct excellent research. This involves different actions and coordinating with the various units of IDIAPJGol, such as the Research Support Units, research groups, the Project Management Unit, the Medicines Studies Unit, SIDIAP, the Innovation Unit, and others.
What goals have you set for yourself?
One of the major goals this year is to promote greater collaboration among IDIAPJGol research groups. For this reason, we are organizing a retreat at Món Sant Benet on May 31, aimed at establishing synergies between groups beyond research lines and territorial boundaries. At the same time, I continue to conduct research, especially co-creative research with citizens.
How relevant is IDIAP Jordi Gol as a research institute?
IDIAPJGol has enormous potential. It is a reference and unique institute in the field of primary care, and we have professionals from different disciplines, which means that our research provides a holistic perspective on the main problems that concern citizens and primary and community healthcare professionals. The work of each Research Support Unit is essential to promote rigorous, high-quality research among primary care professionals.
And the institute is also internationally recognized, right?
At present, thanks to everyone’s efforts, all departments and units work at national, European, and international levels, and we are a reference point in many cutting-edge research areas and in primary care–specific research lines.
