Katherine Halliday
BA MSc PhD
Assistant Professor
Epidemiology
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
I am an infectious disease epidemiologist with an interest in the epidemiology and control of malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). My particular focus is operational research in Africa, specifically the evaluation of school- and community-based health interventions, with the aim of providing robust evidence to guide policy makers. I have experience in conducting large-scale randomised trials in The Gambia, Kenya and Malawi using mixed methods to comprehensively evaluate impact.
I have a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, where I specialised in Biological Anthropology. I have an MSc in Control of Infectious diseases and a PhD in epidemiology from LSHTM.
Affiliations
Teaching
I contribute to a number of MSc teaching modules including Analysis and Design of Research Studies, Spatial Epidemiology in Public Health and Epidemiology and Control of Malaria.
I am on the advisory committee for a PhD student: Simon Kigozi (Evaluating the effectiveness of routinely reported data for community-level malaria prediction in Uganda)
Research
My research has primarily focused on implementation and evaluation of public health interventions through cluster randomised trials, specifically interventions targeting malaria and soil transmitted helminths (STH). I have spent much of the last seven years in Kenya first working on the National Schools Malaria Survey and then coordinating a cluster randomised trial looking at the effects of school-based Intermittent Screening and Treatment (IST) for malaria and enhanced literacy instruction on educational achievement and anaemia in 101 schools in Kwale District, South Coast, Kenya. My PhD focused on evaluating the impact of school-based IST on health and education outcomes in school children in Kenya, specifically exploring the heterogeneity in risk, impact and process of the intervention. These aspects were investigated using various methods such as: risk analyses using cross sectional data; multilevel modelling to assess impact; latent class analysis to investigate diagnostic performance of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs); Bayesian geostatistical analysis of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of school-level P. falciparum infection and prevalence-based models to assess individual-level overdispersion of P. falciparum infection.
I am currently coordinating the Tumikia Project, evaluating the impact of alternative (school- and commmunity-based) deworming delivery strategies on soil-transmitted helmith transmission in Kenya. I also provide trial oversight on the Learner Treatment Kit study, evaluating the impact of a school-based programme of malaria diagnosis and treatment on school attendance in southern Malawi.
Earlier research includes a month in Bangaldesh as part of a team from IEDCR conducting surveys investigating the relationship between prevalence of dengue fever and household socioeconomic status. I also worked at MRC Keneba fieldstation in The Gambia (2007-08), assisting on a clinical trial investigating the effects of daily omega-3 oil supplementation in infants on growth, gut integrity and cognitive development.
