From Erfurt to the World: Health Communication student joins research trip to Gabon

Since Gabon is French-speaking and I was in a French-bilingual class at school, I received the following message at the end of February: “Hey, how long will you be working with us as a student assistant? Would you like to fly to Gabon with me?” Despite initial doubts, because I had hardly spoken French since graduating from high school and had never been outside Europe before, I thought to myself: “Challenge accepted!” And at some point, I was actually sitting on the plane. Once there, we spent several days meeting with our project partners and the field workers who will be collecting the data on site. Among other things, I was able to teach the basics of psychological research in a small workshop and present our studies, which deal with topics such as vaccination decisions and antibiotic consumption. Afterwards, we discussed the questionnaire, made small adjustments to the cultural context, and rehearsed the interview situation.