Dr Catherine Pitt
Associate Professor
United Kingdom
I have worked at LSHTM since 2008 as a health economist with a focus on economic evaluation and health financing. After completing my BA at Yale in history and international studies, I worked with health-focused development and humanitarian NGOs in Rwanda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistani-Administered Kashmir, and the Central African Republic. I received an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries (now known as "Public Health for Development") and a PhD in Health Economics from LSHTM.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I am the advisor for the Health Economics stream of the MSc Public Health. I lead seminars on the Term 1 module Introduction to Health Economics and the Term 2 module Economic Evaluation. I also lecture on the economics of malaria for the MSc module on malaria.
For many years, I was a personal tutor and summer project supervisor for students on the MSc Public Health for Development and have also supervised summer projects for students on the MSc Public Health (health economics stream) and the MSc Health Policy, Planning, and Financing.
Since 2021, I have also been chair of the Teaching Committee for LSHTM's Global Health Economics Centre (GHECO).
Research
My applied economic evaluation work focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, where I am involved in studies of interventions to tackle malaria and neglected tropical diseases and to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH). I work on both non-randomized evaluations and (individually- or cluster-) randomised trials. I am interested in multidisciplinary evaluation of health interventions, and am particularly interested in transferability of economic evaluation evidence, conceptual modelling, community health workers, health systems, geographical targeting, disease elimination, and improving methods for cost data collection and analysis. I previously coordinated economic evaluation work within the Department of Global Health & Development, and led a supplement in Health Economics called Economic evaluations in low- and middle-income countries: Methodological issues and challenges for priority setting. My PhD focused on economic evaluations of malaria interventions and sought to improve methods for increasing the transferability of findings across contexts.
My second area of research concerns methods for tracking donor financing, with a focus on how to estimate aid for specific areas of health. As part of the Countdown initiative, I have led in-depth research comparing methods for tracking aid for RMNCH and collaborated with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health to develop new, harmonized methods to promote accountability and facilitate advocacy efforts - Muskoka2. In collaboration with Saving Newborn Lives, I have also developed methods to track aid for prenatal and neonatal health.
Current research projects include:
The Plus Project: Programmatic scale-up of perennial malaria chemoprevention for children under 2 in 4 countries (Mozambique, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin), with evaluation activities in 7 countries, funded by Unitaid.
SHARP: Skin Health Africa Reserach Programme in Ethiopia and Ghana, funded by the National Institute for Health Research
OMWaNA: Operationalizing Kangaroo Mother Care before stabilisation amongst low birth weight neonates in Africa, a cluster-randomized trial in Ugandan hospitals funded by the Joint Global Health Trials Scheme
Health Financing Data Analysis Centre for the Countdown to 2030, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
STOP: Toward the interruption of transmission of soil-transmitted helminths, funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership
I currently supervise research degree students working on the cost-effectiveness of interventions to tackle malaria (Katie Snyman & David Bath), and formally mentor a fellowship-holder (Dr Ian Ross) working on the economics of hygiene interventions.
I am also an Associate Editor for the Wiley journal, Health Economics.