Matthew Cairns BSc MSc PhD

Lecturer in Epidemiology

I am an epidemiologist and work on malaria intervention studies with others in the Medical Research Council Tropical Epidemiology Group.  My current research is on intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in children, an approach to control malaria in areas where transmission is highly seasonal.

I am particularly interested in how this intervention can best be adapted to areas with different malaria epidemiology, and how different delivery methods could improve the effectiveness of drug-based prevention of malaria. More broadly, I am interested in the effectiveness of combined malaria control strategies, which are essential to reducing morbidity and mortality in the areas with the highest malaria burden, as well as in the context of future attempts at malaria elimination.

Prior to joining the Tropical Epidemiology Group I completed a PhD at LSHTM supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and supervised by Paul Milligan. My thesis title was 'Intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in infants and children: protective mechanism, drug choice and optimal dosing strategies'. Before my PhD I studied the MSc in Epidemiology at LSHTM, also supported by the MRC. My first degree was in Biological Sciences.

Affiliation

Teaching

I teach or have taught on a number of MSc modules at the school (Epidemiology and Control of Malaria, Basic Epidemiology, Extended Epidemiology, Statistical Methods in Epidemiology, Statistics for EPH and Modelling & the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases). I am a tutor for the school-based MSc in Epidemiology and have been a tutor on the MSc in Epidemiology by Distance Learning for the past five years.

I provide statistical and epidemiological advice to PhD Students based at African partner institutions through the Malaria Capacity Development Consortium. I am also on the advisory panel of four PhD students at LSHTM.

Research

I currently work on a large scale cluster-randomised trial of intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in children in Senegal. I have lead recent work to map the areas where seasonal IPTc would be appropriate and estimate its impact in collaboration with colleagues at Imperial College London. This work will be reviewed by a WHO policy committee in early 2012.

I also work on a multi-site randomised control trial of two interventions for malaria in pregnancy, and a study of the impact of subsidised ACT and rapid diagnostic tests on access to and uptake of appropriate antimalarial treatment in Tanzania. I've recently worked as the trial statistician for a study of IPTc in combination with home-based management of malaria (HMM) in Ghana and have been developing methods to monitor IPTi efficacy in collaboration with colleagues at the school and WHO.

Research areas

  • Drug resistance
  • Modelling

Disciplines

  • Epidemiology
  • Statistics

Disease and Health Conditions

  • Infectious disease
  • Malaria

Other interests

  • Intermittent Preventive Treatment
  • Malaria Centre
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