Jennifer Palmer BSc MSc PhD

Research Fellow in Health Systems Research

Jen Palmer is a Health Systems Research Fellow based in the International Centres for Eye Health and Evidence in Disability. She conducted her PhD on case-detection in human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in post-conflict South Sudan, with a special focus on patient and healthcare worker utilisation of passive screening services. Jen holds a BSc, Hon in Microbiology & Immunology from McGill University and completed an MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases at LSHTM. She has also worked with non-governmental organisations in post-conflict and emergency contexts in Africa and Asia. She currently uses social science and epidemiological methods to conduct operational and health systems research at ICEH in order to improve eye health and eliminate avoidable visual impairment and blindness.

Affiliation

Teaching

Jen is a tutor on the MSc modules: Designing Disease Control Programmes in Developing Countries and Analysis & Design of Research Studies. She is also a tutor and has developed course content for the distance-learning course, Control of Infectious Diseases.

Research

In her PhD, Jen combined anthropological and epidemiological methods to understand community disease discourses, patient treatment-seeking and healthcare worker referral practices in the Nimule HAT focus in Magwi County, South Sudan. This work was in collaboration with Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin) and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as the Sir Halley Stewart Trust. She is currently interested in developing community-based, low-technology interventions for HAT and other neglected tropical diseases in the region.

Since her PhD, Jen has collaborated on a study of refugee/IDP population estimation using satellite imagery.

She is currently working on a series of projects funded by Sightsavers, CBM and Handicap International to map eye care practitioners in sub-Saharan Africa and assess the integration and sustainability of national eye care and rehabilitation programmes in Africa and Asia.

Jen is broadly interested in the implementation of health programmes in conflict-affected and emergency settings and is a member of the Public Health in Humanitarian Crises Group at the school.

Research areas

  • Conflict
  • Diagnostics
  • Disease control
  • Health services research
  • Health systems
  • Health workers
  • Implementation research
  • Mixed methods
  • Qualitative methods
  • Surveillance

Disciplines

  • Anthropology
  • Epidemiology
  • Operational research
  • Social Sciences

Disease and Health Conditions

  • African trypanosomiasis
  • Disability
  • Eye diseases
  • Infectious disease
  • Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)

Regions

  • Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)

Countries

  • Sierra Leone
  • Somalia
  • South Sudan
  • Tanzania

Other interests

  • Access To Care
  • International Eye Health
  • Neglected Tropical Diseases
  • Post Conflict Reconstruction
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