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Dr Ian Ross

Assistant Professor

United Kingdom

I am a health economist with 17 years’ experience in the economics and financing of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. I completed my PhD in health economics at LSHTM with ESRC funding, and hold an MSc Development Economics. My work focuses on economic evaluation of WASH interventions, especially: (i) measuring and valuing quality of life outcomes (e.g. SanQoL-5 and IWISE-4); and, (ii) preference elicitation using discrete choice experiments. For previous projects see Google Scholar. I co-organise the WASH Economics Conference and run the WASHeconomics.com blog. I am on the management committee of LSHTM’s Global Health Economics Centre. Before joining LSHTM, I established and grew a six-strong water team at Oxford Policy Management, leading WASH consulting projects the World Bank, DFID and UNICEF. Prior to that, I was in WaterAid’s policy team working on a variety of research and advocacy, including a period based in Timor-Leste

Affiliations

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

Centres

Global Health Economics Centre

Teaching

PhD supervision: I am lead supervisor of a Bloomsbury-funded PhD student (Omran Musa) and co-supervised a recently-completed DrPH student (Seungman Cha). I am at capacity so cannot take on more PhD students at present. 

MSc teaching: I am one of the module organisers for LSHTM's distance learning module on WASH. I also teach elements of in-person modules including Economic Analysis for Health PolicyEthics, Public Health & Human Rights and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.

MSc dissertations: I enjoy supervising MSc dissertations, out of which we have produced journal articles - one published here, another under review (pre-print here), and three more in the works.

Research

Ongoing projects include:

Research Area
Economic evaluation
Hygiene
Sanitation
Water
Social Policy
Country
Bangladesh
Ethiopia
Haiti
Madagascar
Malawi
Mozambique
Nepal
Pakistan
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Tunisia
Zambia

Selected Publications

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH): the evolution of a global health and development sector.
De Wit, S; Luseka, E; Bradley, D; Brown, J; Bhagwan, J; Evans, B; Freeman, MC; Howard, G; Ray, I; ROSS, I; Simiyu, S; CUMMING, O; CHANDLER, CI R;
2024
BMJ global health
Effectiveness of handwashing with soap for preventing acute respiratory infections in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
ROSS, I; BICK, S; AYIEKO, P; DREIBELBIS, R; Wolf, J; Freeman, MC; ALLEN, E; Brauer, M; CUMMING, O;
2023
The Lancet
Effectiveness of interventions to improve drinking water, sanitation, and handwashing with soap on risk of diarrhoeal disease in children in low-income and middle-income settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Wolf, J; Hubbard, S; Brauer, M; Ambelu, A; Arnold, BF; Bain, R; Bauza, V; Brown, J; Caruso, BA; Clasen, T; Colford, JM; Freeman, MC; Gordon, B; Johnston, RB; Mertens, A; Prüss-Ustün, A; ROSS, I; Stanaway, J; Zhao, JT; CUMMING, O; Boisson, S;
2022
The Lancet
Costs of hand hygiene for all in household settings: estimating the price tag for the 46 least developed countries.
ROSS, I; Esteves Mills, J; Slaymaker, T; Johnston, R; Hutton, G; DREIBELBIS, R; Montgomery, M;
2021
BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH
Measuring and valuing broader impacts in public health: Development of a sanitation-related quality of life instrument in Maputo, Mozambique.
ROSS, I; GRECO, G; OPONDO, C; Adriano, Z; Nala, R; Brown, J; DREIBELBIS, R; CUMMING, O;
2021
Health Economics
How does sanitation influence people's quality of life? Qualitative research in low-income areas of Maputo, Mozambique.
ROSS, I; CUMMING, O; DREIBELBIS, R; Adriano, Z; Nala, R; GRECO, G;
2021
Social Science & Medicine
Benefits and Costs of a Community-Led Total Sanitation Intervention in Rural Ethiopia-A Trial-Based ex post Economic Evaluation.
Cha, S; Jung, S; Bizuneh, DB; Abera, T; Doh, Y-A; Seong, J; ROSS, I;
2020
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Effectiveness of domestic food hygiene interventions on the microbiological quality of child food and childhood diarrhoea: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Braun, L; MACLEOD, C; WELLS, J; Chipungu, J; Amon-Tanoh, MA; MacDougall, A; Opondo, C; Dreibelbis, R; Mahmud, ZH; Lanata, CF; ROSS, I; CUMMING, O;
2025
Center for Open Science
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