Dr Val Curtis BSc MSc PhD
- Room 402
- LSHTM
- Keppel Street
- London
- WC1E 7HT
- T: 00 44 20 7927 2628
- F: 00 44 20 7636 7843
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Val is Director of the Hygiene Centre, a multidisciplinary group dedicated to improving hygiene, sanitation and water in households and schools through enhancing knowledge. She is trained in engineering, epidemiology and anthropology and has a particular interest in human behaviour, especially from an evolutionary perspective.
Affiliation
Teaching
Val organises the Study Module on the Design of Disease Control Programmes in Developing Countries. She teaches on the Tropical Environmental Health Study Module and gives an annual public health lecture on hygiene and sanitation.
Research
After coordinating a major study of diarrhoeal disease and a trial of the effectiveness of hygiene promotion in Burkina Faso she studied hygiene behaviour in developing countries for many years. She is currently researching the health impacts of handwashing, the effectiveness of different approaches, including consumer marketing, in changing hygiene behaviour, sanitation marketing, and Darwinian approaches to Health Promotion. The evolution and function of disgust and its relationship to hygiene is a particular area of interest. She helped found and is one of the leaders of the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap and is director of the Hygiene Centre at the LSHTM.
Research areas
- Behaviour change
- Hygiene
- Sanitation
- Water
Disciplines
- Anthropology
- Epidemiology
Disease and Health Conditions
- Diarrhoeal diseases
Other interests
- Evolution
- Human Behaviour
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Selected publications
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Disgust as an adaptive system for disease avoidance behaviour.
Curtis, V.; de Barra, M.; Aunger, R.;
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 2011; 366(1563):389-401
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Hygiene: new hopes, new horizons.
Curtis, V. ; Schmidt, W. ; Luby, S. ; Florez, R. ; Touré, O. ; Biran, A. ;
Lancet Infect Dis, 2011; 11(4):312-21
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Planned, motivated and habitual hygiene behaviour: an eleven country review.
Curtis, V.A.; Danquah, L.O.; Aunger, R.V.;
Health Educ Res, 2009; 24(4):655-73
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Experimental pretesting of hand-washing interventions in a natural setting.
Judah, G.; Aunger, R.; Schmidt, W.P.; Michie, S.; Granger, S.; Curtis, V.;
Am J Public Health, 2009; 99 Suppl 2:S405-11
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Kinds of behaviour
Aunger, R.; Curtis, V.
Biology & Philosophy, 2008; 23(3):317-345
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Masters of Marketing: Bringing Private Sector Skills to Public Health Partnerships.
Curtis, V.A.; Garbrah-Aidoo, N.; Scott, B.;
Am J Public Health, 2007; 97(4):634-41
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Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease.
Curtis, V.; Aunger, R.; Rabie, T.;
Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci , 2004; 271 Suppl 4 :S131-3
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Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review
Curtis, V.; Cairncross, S.
Lancet Infect Dis, 2003; 3(5):275-81
- → View all Dr Val Curtis's publications
