The Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), located in rural northeast South Africa close to the Mozambique border, provides the foundation for the Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC) and University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (the MRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit). Its origins lie in the university’s ‘Health Systems Development Unit’ that in the early 1990s focused on district health systems development, sub-district health centre networks and referral systems and training of clinically oriented primary health care nurses.
Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé
Head of Field Research at the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit, School of Public Health