Betty Kirkwood Ma MSc DIC FFPH FMedSci

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Background

I am an epidemiologist with a statistical background. I joined the School in 1979, in 1988 set up the Maternal and Child Epidemiology Unit and in 2001 the Public Health Intervention Research Unit, which joined with the Public Health Nutrition Unit in 2003 to become NPHIRU.

My research is driven by a desire to improve the health of young children in developing countries, and of their mothers. This is accompanied by a commitment to translating research findings into health policy and programme action, to research capacity strengthening, and to making complex epidemiological and statistical methods accessible to public health researchers and policy makers.

I have close links with the World Health Organization, and an extensive network of overseas collaborators. I was on the maternal and child health task force of the UN Millennium Project and am a core member of the organising committee of the Countdown to 1015 initiative: tracking progress in maternal and child survival.

Teaching

I contribute to a range of in house MSc courses including epidemiology, statistics with computing, study design, public health lecture series, and current issues in safe motherhood and perinatal health. I am tutor to the MSc Public Health in Developing Countries. I enjoy teaching and believe in a student-centred, problem-based approach. I am committed to making complex methodological concepts accessible to non-specialists (and have written a textbook of medical statistics which is used as a standard text in many institutions in Europe as well as at the School). The second edition of Essential Medical Statistics is co-authored with Jonathan Sterne and was published in May 2003. I also very much enjoy tutoring research degree students.

Research

My main current interests are: community-based strategies to reduce neonatal mortality; vitamin A supplementation and maternal mortality; interventions to improve child health, growth and development; inequalities in maternal, neonatal and child survival and in access to key MCH interventions; the role of mental health & common mental disorders in MCH; evaluation of public health interventions to detect and treat common mental disorders; promotion of scaling-up research; development and evaluation of feasible and sustainable interventions that can be delivered at scale to improve maternal, newborn and child health.

Selected publications

• Edmond, K.M.; Zandoh, C.; Quigley, M.A.; Amenga-Etego, S.; Owusu-Agyei, S.; Kirkwood, B.R.; Delayed breastfeeding initiation increases risk of neonatal mortality. Pediatrics, 2006; 117(3):e380-6
• Hill, Z.; Kirkwood, B.; Kendall, C.; Adjei, E.; Arthur, P.; Agyemang, C.T.; Factors that affect the adoption and maintenance of weekly vitamin A supplementation among women in Ghana. Public Health Nutr, 2007; 10(8):827-33
• Victora, C.G.; Fenn, B.; Bryce, J.; Kirkwood, B.R.; Co-coverage of preventive interventions and implications for child-survival strategies: evidence from national surveys. Lancet, 2005; 366(9495):1460-6
• Adongo, P. B.; Kirkwood, B.; Kendall, C. How local community knowledge about malaria affects insecticide-treated net use in northern Ghana Tropical Medicine & International Health, 2005; 10(4):366
• Hill, Z.; Kirkwood, B. R.; Edmond, K. M. Family and community practices which promote child survival, growth and development: a review of the evidence. World Health Organization (Geneva) 2004 :133
• Patel, V.; Kirkwood, B.R.; Weiss, H.; Pednekar, S.; Fernandes, J.; Pereira, B.; Upadhye, M.; Mabey, D.; Chronic fatigue in developing countries: population based survey of women in India. British Medical Journal, 2005; 330(7501):1190
• Newton, S.; Owusu-Agyei, S.; Ampofo, W.; Zandoh, C.; Adjuik, M.; Adjei, G.; Tchum, S.; Filteau, S.; Kirkwood, B.R.; Vitamin A supplementation enhances infants' immune responses to hepatitis B vaccine but does not affect responses to Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine. J Nutr, 2007; 137(5):1272-7
• Hill, Z.; Kendall, C.; Arthur, P.; Kirkwood, B.; Adjei, E. Recognizing childhood illnesses and their traditional explanations: exploring options for care-seeking interventions in the context of the IMCI strategy in rural Ghana Tropical Medicine and International Health, 2003; 8(7):668-76

Full publications listing (since 2001)