AfriBCD

Evidence suggests that cognition is both shaped by, and shapes, the impact of an individual’s environment on their well-being, mental health, and lifelong outcomes. “Cognition” is purposefully a broad label, as it is still unknown which aspects of cognition (and which measures of those aspects) are most important for health and well-being. For example, aspects of cognition our team focuses on are executive functions (e.g., cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibition) as well as autobiographical memory, visual attention, and reasoning.  

There is growing recognition that our understanding of cognition and cognitive development is incomplete, as most research to date has been conducted on a small proportion of the world’s population, predominantly in minority world settings. As such, neurodevelopmental science needs stronger representation from more diverse populations around the world. Yet finding culturally appropriate tools, particularly those measuring cognition, remains a challenge. We aim to address this issue by establishing a community of practice (CoP) that will create culturally tailored, open access cognitive assessments for use with African populations. The key to this CoP is co-creation and collaboration – we invite researchers and partners from African based institutions and around the world to partner with us in this endeavour.