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Prof Joy Lawn

Prof. of Maternal, Reprod. & Child Hlth.

LSHTM
London School Hygiene & Trop Medicine
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom

Joy is a Ugandan-born, British-trained paediatrician/neonatal clinician and perinatal epidemiologist with 30 years’ experience especially in sub-Saharan Africa including: clinical care, measurment and epidemiological burden estimates, implementation/evaluation of maternal, newborn and child health. Her paediatric/neonatal training was in the UK, followed by teaching, implementation and research, mainly living in Africa. Her MPH was from Emory, Atlanta, USA, whilst at CDC, and her PhD at Institute of Child Health, London. For 10 years, she was Director of Evidence and Policy for Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children. She has been a professor at LSHTM since 2012, and was Director of the MARCH Centre (Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health) from 2013-2023 seeing growth from 200 to over 500 academics. 

Her main contribution to global health has been developing the evidence-base to measure and reduce the global burden of 2.3 million neonatal deaths, 2 million stillbirths, and 13.4 million preterm births, including informing Sustainable Development Goal targets. She has published >370 peer-reviewed papers including leading several influential Lancet series, with wide media and policy uptake. H-index ~120. She is Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on Implementation and Evidence in Global Health (2023-2025).

 


She is a champion for equitable and diverse research leadership, and has supervised many PhDs and post-docs. Joy is one of the few women nominated to membership of both UK Academy of Medical Sciences and USA National Academy of Medicine. She has served on many WHO committees,  inclduing STAGE, Global Statistics, Group B Step and been part of Every Newborn leaderhsip team since 2014. 
Twitter/X @joylawn

Affiliations

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and International Health
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

Centres

Centre for Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health
TB Centre
Antimicrobial Resistance Centre

Teaching

MSc teaching includes:
- RHSR (several modules)
- Current issues in Safe Motherhood/perinatal health
- Global Nutrition
- DTM&H

PhDs
~10 successfully completed in the last few years
Currently co supervising several and no scope to take on new phds - sorry 

Research

Joy and her team work on multi-country studies regarding newborn health, stillbirths and child development worldwide, including trials and large scale implementation research on small and sick newborn care with NEST360 Alliance, big data partnerships, and UN estimates as well as novel work on Group B Streptococcus with WHO and others.

Research Area
Maternal health
Epidemiology
Country
Malawi
Uganda
Tanzania
Nigeria
Nepal
Bangladesh
Region
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)
South Asia
East Asia & Pacific (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Small babies, big risks: global estimates of prevalence and mortality for vulnerable newborns to accelerate change and improve counting.
LAWN, JE; OHUMA, EO; BRADLEY, E; Idueta, LS; Hazel, E; OKWARAJI, YB; Erchick, DJ; Yargawa, J; Katz, J; Lee, AC C; Diaz, M; Salasibew, M; Requejo, J; Hayashi, C; Moller, A-B; Borghi, E; Black, RE; BLENCOWE, H; Lancet Small Vulnerable Newborn Steering Committee,; WHO/UNICEF Preterm Birth Estimates Group,; National Vulnerable Newborn Measurement Group,; Subnational Vulnerable Newborn Measurement Group,;
2023
Lancet
Mortality, neurodevelopmental impairments, and economic outcomes after invasive group B streptococcal disease in early infancy in Denmark and the Netherlands: a national matched cohort study.
Horváth-Puhó, E; Van Kassel, MN; Gonçalves, BP; De Gier, B; PROCTER, SR; PAUL, P; Van der Ende, A; Søgaard, KK; Hahné, SJ M; CHANDNA, J; Schrag, SJ; Van de Beek, D; JIT, M; Sørensen, HT; Bijlsma, MW; LAWN, JE;
2021
The Lancet. Child & adolescent health
Assessment of the validity of the measurement of newborn and maternal health-care coverage in hospitals (EN-BIRTH): an observational study.
DAY, LT; Sadeq-Ur Rahman, Q; Ehsanur Rahman, A; Salim, N; Kc, A; RUYSEN, H; Tahsina, T; Masanja, H; Basnet, O; GORE-LANGTON, GR; Zaman, SB; SHABANI, J; Jha, AK; GORDEEV, VS; Ameen, S; Shamba, D; Jha, B; BOGGS, D; Hossain, T; Shirima, K; Bastola, RC; PEVEN, K; Siddique, AB; Mbaruku, G; Paudel, R; ... EN-BIRTH Expert Advisory Group,
2020
Lancet Glob Health
Kangaroo mother care: EN-BIRTH multi-country validation study.
Salim, N; SHABANI, J; PEVEN, K; Rahman, QS-U; Kc, A; Shamba, D; RUYSEN, H; Rahman, AE; Kc, N; Mkopi, N; Zaman, SB; Shirima, K; Ameen, S; Kong, S; Basnet, O; Manji, K; Kabuteni, TJ; BROTHERTON, H; MOXON, SG; Amouzou, A; Hailegebriel, TD; DAY, LT; LAWN, JE; EN-BIRTH Study Group,;
2020
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
Systematic review of Group B Streptococcal capsular types, sequence types and surface proteins as potential vaccine candidates.
Bianchi-Jassir, F; PAUL, P; To, K-N; Carreras-Abad, C; SEALE, AC; Jauneikaite, E; Madhi, SA; Russell, NJ; Hall, J; Madrid, L; Bassat, Q; Kwatra, G; Le Doare, K; LAWN, JE;
2020
VACCINE
Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic response on intrapartum care, stillbirth, and neonatal mortality outcomes in Nepal: a prospective observational study.
Kc, A; Gurung, R; Kinney, MV; Sunny, AK; Moinuddin, M; Basnet, O; Paudel, P; Bhattarai, P; Subedi, K; Shrestha, MP; LAWN, JE; Målqvist, M;
2020
LANCET GLOBAL HEALTH
Stillbirths: rates, risk factors, and acceleration towards 2030.
LAWN, JE; BLENCOWE, H; Waiswa, P; Amouzou, A; Mathers, C; Hogan, D; Flenady, V; Frøen, JF; Qureshi, ZU; CALDERWOOD, C; SHIEKH, S; Jassir, FB; You, D; McClure, EM; Mathai, M; COUSENS, S; Lancet Ending Preventable Stillbirths Series study,; Lancet Stillbirth Epidemiology investigator group,;
2016
Lancet
Neonatal indicator data in Tanzania District Health Information System: evaluation of availability and quality of selected newborn indicators, 2015-2022.
Shabani, J; Salim, N; Bohne, C; DAY, LT; Kumalija, C; Makuwani, AM; Bundala, F; Ismail, H; LAWN, JE; OHUMA, EO;
2025
BMC pediatrics
Measuring the duration of kangaroo mother care for neonates: a scoping review.
Tumukunde, VS; Loucaides, E; Medvedev, MM; NYIRENDA, M; LAWN, J; TANN, CJ;
2025
BMJ open
How and why does mode of birth affect processes for routine data collection and use? A qualitative study in Bangladesh and Tanzania.
RUYSEN, H; Majid, T; Shamba, D; Mhajabin, S; Minja, J; Rahman, AE; Ngopi, T; Ramesh, M; El Arifeen, S; Steege, R; SEELEY, J; LAWN, JE; DAY, LT; EN-BIRTH-2 Study Group,;
2024
PLOS global public health
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