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Dr Catherine Pitt

BA MSc PhD

Associate Professor
of Health Economics

Room
Room 307

LSHTM
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
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

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

Centres

Centre for Evaluation
Malaria Centre
Centre for Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health (MARCH)
Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre
Global Health Economics Centre

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
  • Exemplars in Maternal and Neonatal Health, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • 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
  • Cost-effectiveness analyses of next generation insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria in Tanzania 
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.

Research Area
Complex interventions
Economic evaluation
Health care financing
Maternal health
Perinatal health
Public health
Health workers
Global Health
Methodology
Mixed methods
Neonatal health
Discipline
Economics
Social Sciences
Disease and Health Conditions
Malaria
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
Vector borne disease
Buruli Ulcer
Leishmaniasis
Soil-transmitted helminths
Country
Benin
Burkina Faso
Ethiopia
Ghana
The Gambia
Kenya
Mali
Niger
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
South Africa
Region
Least developed countries: UN classification
Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)

Selected Publications

Falling aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pitt C; Bath D; Binyaruka P; Borghi J; Martinez-Alvarez M
2021
BMJ global health
Estimates of aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health: findings from application of the Muskoka2 method, 2002-17.
Dingle A; Schäferhoff M; Borghi J; Lewis Sabin M; Arregoces L; Martinez-Alvarez M; Pitt C
2020
LANCET GLOBAL HEALTH
Equity of resource flows for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health: are those most in need being left behind?
Martinez-Alvarez M; Federspiel F; Singh NS; Schäferhoff M; Lewis Sabin M; Onoka C; Mounier-Jack S; Borghi J; Pitt C
2020
BMJ
Effects, equity, and cost of school-based and community-wide treatment strategies for soil-transmitted helminths in Kenya: a cluster-randomised controlled trial
Pullan R; Halliday K; Oswald W; Mcharo C; Beaumont E; Kepha S; Witek-McManus S; Gichuki P; Allen E; Drake T
2019
Lancet
Economic evaluation in global health
Pitt C; Borghi J; Hanson K
2018
Oxford Textbook of Global Health of Women, Newborns, Children, and Adolescents
Large-scale delivery of seasonal malaria chemoprevention to children under 10 in Senegal: an economic analysis.
Pitt C; Ndiaye M; Conteh L; Sy O; Hadj Ba E; Cissé B; Gomis JF; Gaye O; Ndiaye J-L; Milligan PJ
2017
Health policy and planning
Foreword: Health Economic Evaluations in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Methodological Issues and Challenges for Priority Setting.
Pitt C; Vassall A; Teerawattananon Y; Griffiths UK; Guinness L; Walker D; Foster N; Hanson K
2015
Health economics
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