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Professor Karen Devries

BSc PhD

Professor
of Social Epidemiology

LSHTM
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom

Tel.
+44 (0)20 7958 8164

I am a social epidemiologist with expertise in the prevention of violence against children and adolescents, and child protection.  I lead the Child Protection Research Group and am affiliated with the Gender, Violence and Health Centre, the Centre for Evidence in Disability, the Centre for Evaluation, the Centre for Global Mental Health, and MARCH.

Affiliations

Department of Global Health and Development
Faculty of Public Health and Policy

Centres

Centre for Evaluation
Centre for Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health (MARCH)

Teaching

I supervise MSc and PhD students, co-organise the Social Epidemiology Module, and lecture on a number of different MSc modules. I developed and co-organised the short course Researching Gender-Based Violence: Methods and Meaning from 2013 to 2021. 

Research

My main research interests include: understanding the causes and consequences of violence against children and adolescents; understanding the nature of violence; and developing and testing interventions to reduce violence and other adverse experiences in childhood. I also conduct research on violence against women, sexual health, mental health, disability, and epidemiological methods. 

My main ongoing research collaborations are with partners in Uganda and Zimbabwe, and I also collaborate on a wide range of data analyses and evidence syntheses which are global in scope.

Research Area
Child health
Complex interventions
Risk
Sexual health
Social and structural determinants of health
Systematic reviews
Adolescent health
Behaviour change
Evaluation
Gender
Global Health
Impact evaluation
Mixed methods
Mobile technologies
Implementation research
Qualitative methods
Randomised controlled trials
Schools
Smoking
Violence
Education
Discipline
Epidemiology
Psychology
Statistics
Social Sciences
Disease and Health Conditions
HIV/AIDS
Mental health
Sexually transmitted disease
Addiction
Sexually transmitted infection
Country
Canada
United Kingdom
Region
North America
Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)
World

Selected Publications

Exploring children's formal help-seeking behaviour for violence in Zimbabwe: analysis of national survey and routine service provider data
Devries K; Cerna-Turoff I; Fabbri C; Turner E; Nyakuwa R; Nherera CM; Nhenga-Chakarisa T; Nengomasha BC; Moyo R
2023
BMJ open
Behavioural intervention to reduce sexually transmitted infections in people aged 16–24 years in the UK: the safetxt RCT
Free C; Palmer MJ; Potter K; McCarthy OL; Jerome L; Berendes S; Gubijev A; Knight M; Jamal Z; Dhaliwal F
2023
Public health research
Violence against children and child labour in Uganda: what evidence exists?
Kiss L; Kyamulabi A; Pearlman J; Kasalirwe F; Knight L; Devries K; Tanton C; Walakira E; Pearlman J
2023
Ethical reporting of research on violence against women and children: a review of current practice and recommendations for future guidelines.
Peterman A; Devries K; Guedes A; Chandan JS; Minhas S; Lim RQH; Gennari F; Bhatia A
2023
BMJ Glob Health
Syndemic of factors that shape the early lives of women who enter into sex work: a qualitative methods study from Nairobi, Kenya.
Shah P; Beattie TS; Kabuti R; Liku J; Kung'u M; Babu H; Jama Z; Maisha Fiti Study Champions; Kaul R; Weiss HA
2023
BMJ Open
The Epidemiology of Young People's Work and Experiences of Violence in Nine Countries: Evidence from the Violence against Children Surveys
Bhatia A; Parvez M; Pearlman J; Kasalirwe F; Kiss L; Kyamulabi A; Walakira EJ; Devries K; Tanton C
2022
International journal of environmental research and public health
See more Publications