After our final immersion, we were able to experience what the NAMD office workers do when the field worker sends in their data. There are different stations when it comes to post-data collection. There are employees that validate the online data with the paper copies to make sure it was inputted correctly. There are other employees that uses STATA, an encoding program, to make sure there are no suspicious data. For example, members of the household having the same blood pressure readings or inputting 855 instead of 85. Even though it doesn’t sound like a lot there are ~10 categories for the data collection and 1-2 employees are assigned to each category.

              When I was using STATA, it reminded me of my calculus class because we had to use a program similar to STATA and I was not the greatest at it. Luckily, Kuya JM gave us the codes already so all I had to do was copy and paste then tweak it a bit. After learning about the NAMD employees’ job, we had the opportunity to tour the labs where the urine, blood, and salt samples are evaluated. I enjoyed this part of the office because it made me miss being a chemistry student and working in the lab. Even though being in the lab doesn’t really apply to my profession, I wish I was able to shadow one of the lab workers just to see how the process works.

I would like to thank the Freeman Asia program for funding this internship, Dr. Teddy Amoloza and Illinois Wesleyan University for this amazing opportunity, and the FNRI employees and fieldworkers for their hospitality and making feel like I have another home. Salamat po! Ingat!