I'm an epidemiologist, and my research focus is the development and evaluation of public health interventions for newborn, infant, child, and maternal survival in low and middle income countries, including evaluation of equity as well as effectiveness. I was based in Tanzania for 9 years, and have been involved in collaborative research with Ifakara Health Institute since 1992. From 2019-2021 I was a visiting professor in the Institute of Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine at Geneva University. I have a particular interest in quality improvement in health care, in community-based interventions, in programme design for both sustainability and scale, and in embedding capacity development in global health research studies.
Affiliations
Department of Disease Control
Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases
Centres
Centre for Evaluation
Malaria Centre
Centre for Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health
Vaccine Centre
Teaching
I am co-director for the Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) Programme. I co-lead the London-based Master's module on Designing Public Health Programmes.
Research
I am co-principal investigator for the second phase of the multi-disciplinary IDEAS project, which involves measurement, learning and evaluation for maternal and newborn health in Ethiopia, Nigeria and India as has a budget to date of $26m. I am principal investigator of IDEAS’ sister project Dagu, which includes capacity development for public health evaluation in Ethiopia; and also led the evaluation of Safe Care, Saving Lives, a quality-improvement intervention for neonatal survival in Andhra Pradesh and Telegana States in India. Previously I led a cluster-randomised trial of a home-based counselling approach for newborn health, and worked on both intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in infants and as a technical advisor to the WHO multi-country evaluation of IMCI. In 1998 I started a birth cohort in the rural area surrounding Ifakara, Tanzania: in 2022 we published a first set of results from the long-term follow-up of this cohort, reporting a survival benefit in young adults of malaria control in early childhood.
Selected Publications
Are We Using the Right Approach to Change Newborn Care Practices in the Community? Qualitative Evidence From Ethiopia and Northern Nigeria.
2020
Global health, science and practice
Measurement and accountability for maternal, newborn and child health: fit for 2030?
2020
BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH
Infant Feeding Practices in Ethiopia: Birth Cohort Study in Five Regions.
2025
Maternal & child nutrition
