Professor Tony Barnett PhD

Professor Social Sciences of Infectious Diseases

Background

Professor Barnett joined LSHTM in 2013 after ten years at the London School of Economics with honorary status at the LSHTM. He retains an attachment to the Department of Social Policy at the LSE.

He has a general interest in the social science of infectious diseases. Between 1986 and 2007, his research centred on the social and economic effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and Asia (including Russia, Ukraine and other members of the Confederation of Independent States).

He has studied the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural societies in Africa, on commercial, voluntary and public organisations, and has written about problems of costing the epidemic, and in particular its costs in relation to social reproduction, hedonic loss and hope. He has also worked widely on the availability and costs of anti-retroviral treatments in Africa. In 2005, Professor Barnett was appointed to the Expert Advisory Group of the UK government's Foresight Project, Detection and Identification of Infectious Diseases, where he worked on the human and bovine tuberculosis as well as on HIV/AIDS. From 2007-2009, he led a large study of the potential impact of pandemic influenza on the UK together with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, the LSE, Queen Mary University of London and the LSHTM. At the same time he led a large study of the effects of HIV/AIDS on state security. This was funded by the US Social Science Research Council, The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others. It had sub-studies in South Africa, Indonesia, India, The Russian Federation, Mozambique and Myanmar. In 2010-2011, he was one of the researchers/authors of the United Nations report: "On the front line: A review of programmes that address HIV among international peacekeepers and uniformed services 2005–2010".

Current Main Research

Live Bird Markets and Avian Influenza

For some years, he has worked closely with colleagues from the Royal Veterinary College. In November 2014, he, Professor Dirk Pfeiffer, Dr Guillaume Fournié (from the Royal Veterinary College) and Dr Punam Mangtani from the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at LSHTM, and colleagues from Bangladesh and from Chatham House, were awarded a grant from the Zoonoses and Emerging Livestock Systems (ZELS) Programme: Reducing the risk to livestock and people to research the ways in which the network structure of live bird markets enhance or retard the likelihood of transmission of avian influenza. This project is funded by the BBSRC, ESRC, DSTL, MRC, NERC and DFID The research, scheduled to finish in 2017/8, will include careful mathematical modelling of poultry production and marketing, detailed ethnography and development of an experimental epidemiology.

Hope, emergent property variables and infectious disease acquisition

Current work on hope includes empirical research (with Janet Seeley - LSHTM), Guillaume Fournier (RVC), Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Jonathan Levin (Witwatersrand), Joseph Katongole (MRC and UVRI, Uganda) on the applicability of a hope index to understanding differential risk of HIV transmission in some Uganda rural communities and the inclusion of social variables in mathematical models of infectious disease transmission. Recent publications in the journal Global Public Health, February 2015, include: (a) Some considerations concerning the challenge of incorporating social variables into epidemiological models of infectious disease transmission, DOI -: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2015.1007155 ; (b) Hope: a new approach to understanding structural factors in HIV acquisition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2015.1007154

Subidiary research

Pandemic risk

Together with colleagues from Imperial College Institute of Security Science,and Technology, notably Professor Peter Biggins and Dr Andrew Burton, he is exploring an innovative approach to preparation and resilience in the face of pandemic disease events.


FGM

In addition to his work on infectious diseases, Professor Barnett also researches FGM in various parts of Africa and has provided expert witness advice in relation to these matters in courts in the UK, USA, Netherlands and Germany. Most notably in 2013 together with his then colleague at the LSE, Professor Sylvia Chant, in the United Kingdom Upper Tribunal Country Guidance Case:

K and others (FGM) The Gambia CG v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, [2013] UKUT 00062(IAC), United Kingdom: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), 8 April 2013, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5163e5204.html

Affiliation

Centres

Research

Current research interests are:

infectious diseases and security

the role of hope and other emotions in understanding infectious disease transmission in human populations

work with colleagues from the Royal Veterinary College and London International Development Centre on zoonotic diseases

Research areas

  • Ethnography
  • Gender
  • Global Health
  • Health inequalities
  • Infectious disease policy
  • Public health
  • Qualitative methods
  • Risk
  • Social and structural determinants of health

Disciplines

  • Anthropology
  • Development studies
  • Economics
  • Epidemiology
  • Policy analysis
  • Political science
  • Sociology

Disease and Health Conditions

  • Emerging Infectious Disease
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Infectious disease
  • Pandemic diseases
  • Zoonotic disease

Regions

  • Europe & Central Asia (developing only)
  • Least developed countries: UN classification
  • Middle East & North Africa (developing only)
  • South Asia
  • Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)

Countries

  • Bangladesh

Other interests

  • Hope
  • avian influenza
  • emergent properties
  • zoonoses
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