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Meghna Ranganathan

BSc MSc PhD

Assistant Professor

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

My background includes a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) and an MSc in Public Health from the University of Edinburgh, UK. I am a member of the Gender Violence Health Center at the LSHTM and Cash Transfers and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Research Collaborative and was previously a member of the DFID-funded STRIVE Research Consortium. I am an Associate Editor of the journal PLOS One and an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

I have conducted both quantitative and qualitative research exploring the links between social protection programmes and sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on gender related issues and adolescent health in low and middle-income countries. I have both research and programmatic experience, including conducting feasibility assessments, providing input into study designs, tool development and data analysis for programme evaluations for various international development organisations, including the UN and non-governmental organisations.

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 teach on the Introduction to Health Economics, Health Services, Economic Analysis for Health Policy and Basic Maths modules. I tutor on the MSc Public Health and MSc Control of Infectious Diseases modules and supervise MSc summer projects.

Research

I have a particular interest in interventions that tackle the structural drivers of HIV/AIDS and intimate partner violence (IPV), with a focus on gender and adolescents. I am the co-principal investigator on an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) secondary analysis grant. In that role, I have been leading efforts to evaluate the scale-up of an economic intervention to examine the relationship between women’s empowerment and IPV among a cohort of women in rural South Africa. The intervention combines a poverty-focused microfinance programme with gender training and HIV education. I co-lead a couple of studies investigating pathways between cash transfers and IPV, and transactional sex and HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. I am also the co-principal investigator of a study funded by the British Academy to develop a measure for sexual harassment in Tanzania. For my doctoral research, my research was embedded in a conditional cash transfer trial and I employed quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the socio-economic factors associated with adolescent women’s engagement in transactional sex and its association with HIV infection.

Research Area
Health inequalities
Sexual health
Social and structural determinants of health
Adolescent health
Behaviour change
Gender
Impact evaluation
Mixed methods
Implementation research
Qualitative methods
Reproductive health
Violence
Discipline
Development studies
Epidemiology
Operational research
Social Sciences
Disease and Health Conditions
HIV/AIDS
Sexually transmitted infection
Region
Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)

Selected Publications

Gender-Based Violence in the Context of Climate Change in the Arab Region. Review of Evidence and Pathways.
Ranganathan M
2023
Sexual Harassment in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Qualitative Systematic Review.
Hardt S; Stöckl H; Wamoyi J; Ranganathan M
2022
Trauma, violence & abuse
Global research into cash transfers to prevent intimate partner violence.
Palermo T; Barrington C; Buller AM; Heise L; Hidrobo M; Ranganathan M; Roy S
2022
The Lancet Global Health
Government of Ethiopia's public works and complementary programmes: A mixed-methods study on pathways to reduce intimate partner violence.
Ranganathan M; Pichon M; Hidrobo M; Tambet H; Sintayehu W; Tadesse S; Buller AM
2022
Social Science & Medicine
Transactional sex among adolescent girls and young women enrolled in a cash plus intervention in rural Tanzania: a mixed-methods study.
Ranganathan M; Quinones S; Palermo T; Gilbert U; Kajula L; Tanzania Cash Plus Evaluation Team
2022
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Cross-disciplinary intersections between public health and economics in intimate partner violence research.
Ranganathan M; Heise L; Peterman A; Roy S; Hidrobo M
2021
SSM - Population Health
Women's economic status, male authority patterns and intimate partner violence: a qualitative study in rural North West Province, South Africa.
Ranganathan M; Stern E; Knight L; Muvhango L; Molebatsi M; Polzer-Ngwato T; Lees S; Stöckl H
2021
Culture, Health and Sexuality
Child Domestic Work, Violence, and Health Outcomes: A Rapid Systematic Review.
Thi AM; Zimmerman C; Pocock NS; Chan CW; Ranganathan M
2021
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Male and Female Conceptualizations of Sexual Harassment in Tanzania: The Role of Consent, Male Power, and Social Norms.
Wamoyi J; Ranganathan M; Mugunga S; Stöckl H
2021
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
COVID-19 social distancing measures and informal urban settlements.
Wamoyi J; Ranganathan M; Stöckl H
2021
Bulletin of the World Health Organization
Women's income and risk of intimate partner violence: secondary findings from the MAISHA cluster randomised trial in North-Western Tanzania.
Abramsky T; Lees S; Stöckl H; Harvey S; Kapinga I; Ranganathan M; Mshana G; Kapiga S
2019
BMC Public Health
Women's economic empowerment and health related decision-making in rural Sierra Leone.
Cornish H; Walls H; Ndirangu R; Ogbureke N; Bah OM; Tom-Kargbo JF; Dimoh M; Ranganathan M
2019
Culture, Health and Sexuality
Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity (IMAGE): Women's Engagement with the Scaled-up IMAGE Programme and Experience of Intimate Partner Violence in Rural South Africa.
Knight L; Ranganathan M; Abramsky T; Polzer-Ngwato T; Muvhango L; Molebatsi M; Stöckl H; Lees S; Watts C
2019
Prevention Science
The Mediating Role of Partner Selection in the Association Between Transactional Sex and HIV Incidence Among Young Women.
Ranganathan M; Kilburn K; Stoner MCD; Hughes JP; MacPhail C; Gomez-Olive FX; Wagner RG; Kahn K; Agyei Y; Pettifor A
2019
J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr
Associations Between Women's Economic and Social Empowerment and Intimate Partner Violence: Findings From a Microfinance Plus Program in Rural North West Province, South Africa.
Ranganathan M; Knight L; Abramsky T; Muvhango L; Polzer Ngwato T; Mbobelatsi M; Ferrari G; Watts C; Stöckl H
2019
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Improving the Measurement of Transactional Sex in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Review.
Wamoyi J; Ranganathan M; Kyegombe N; Stoebenau K
2019
JAIDS-Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes
A mixed-method review of cash transfers and intimate partner violence in low and middle-income countries
Buller A; Peterman A; Ranganathan M; Bleile A; Hidrobo M; Heise L
2018
A Mixed-Method Review of Cash Transfers and Intimate Partner Violence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Buller AM; Peterman A; Ranganathan M; Bleile A; Hidrobo M; Heise L
2018
The World Bank research observer
Transactional sex and incident HIV infection in a cohort of young women from rural South Africa.
Kilburn K; Ranganathan M; Stoner MCD; Hughes JP; MacPhail C; Agyei Y; Gómez-Olivé FX; Kahn K; Pettifor A
2018
AIDS (London, England)
'It's because I like things… it's a status and he buys me airtime': exploring the role of transactional sex in young women's consumption patterns in rural South Africa (secondary findings from HPTN 068).
Ranganathan M; Heise L; MacPhail C; Stöckl H; Silverwood RJ; Kahn K; Selin A; Xavier Gómez-Olivé F; Watts C; Pettifor A
2018
Reproductive health
Young women's perceptions of transactional sex and sexual agency: a qualitative study in the context of rural South Africa.
Ranganathan M; MacPhail C; Pettifor A; Kahn K; Khoza N; Twine R; Watts C; Heise L
2017
BMC public health
Transactional sex among young women in rural South Africa: prevalence, mediators and association with HIV infection.
Ranganathan M; Heise L; Pettifor A; Silverwood RJ; Selin A; MacPhail C; Delany-Moretlwe S; Kahn K; Gómez-Olivé FX; Hughes JP
2016
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Process guidelines for establishing Intercoder Reliability in qualitative studies
MacPhail C; Khoza N; Abler L; Ranganathan M
2015
Qualitative research
Cash transfers for HIV prevention: considering their potential.
Heise L; Lutz B; Ranganathan M; Watts C
2013
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Donor funding for newborn survival: an analysis of donor-reported data, 2002-2010.
Pitt C; Lawn JE; Ranganathan M; Mills A; Hanson K
2012
PLoS medicine
Motivating public use of physician-level performance data: an experiment on the effects of message and mode.
Ranganathan M; Hibbard J; Rodday AMC; de Brantes F; Conroy K; Rogers WH; Gelb Safran D
2008
Medical care research and review
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