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Professor Joanna Schellenberg

BA MSc PhD

Professor
of Epidemiology & International Health

LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom

Tel.
+44(0)207 927 2358

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
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Centres

Centre for Evaluation
Malaria Centre
Centre for Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health (MARCH)
Centre for Statistical Methodology

Teaching

I am co-programme director for the Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH). I co-lead the London-based Master's module on Designing Disease Control 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.

Research Area
Child health
Complex interventions
Health inequalities
Maternal health
Quality improvement
Health workers
Behaviour change
Capacity strengthening
Equity
Evaluation
Impact evaluation
Inequalities
Neonatal health
Implementation research
Discipline
Epidemiology
Disease and Health Conditions
Infectious disease
Malaria
Country
Ethiopia
India
Nigeria
Tanzania
Uganda
Region
Least developed countries: UN classification
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)

Selected Publications

Embed capacity development within all global health research.
Adegnika AA; Amuasi JH; Basinga P; Berhanu D; Medhanyie AA; Okwaraji YB; Persson LÅ; Savadogo B; Schellenberg J; Steinmann P
2021
BMJ global health
Are We Using the Right Approach to Change Newborn Care Practices in the Community? Qualitative Evidence From Ethiopia and Northern Nigeria.
Hill Z; Scheelbeek P; Hamza Y; Amare Y; Schellenberg J
2020
Global health, science and practice
Measurement and accountability for maternal, newborn and child health: fit for 2030?
Marchant T; Boerma T; Diaz T; Huicho L; Kyobutungi C; Mershon C-H; Schellenberg J; Somers K; Waiswa P; Nairobi Group
2020
BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH
How and under what circumstances do quality improvement collaboratives lead to better outcomes? A systematic review.
Zamboni K; Baker U; Tyagi M; Schellenberg J; Hill Z; Hanson C
2020
IMPLEMENTATION SCIENCE
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