Tracey Smythe
BSc Physiotherapy MPH PhD
Assistant Professor
I am a physiotherapist with clinical experience developing, co-ordinating and delivering rehabilitation interventions and health worker training interventions in Australia, Brazil, countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK. I specialised in paediatric care, and my main work is with children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their families.
I am an Assistant Professor with the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at LSHTM, where my focus has been on the development of interventions to improve the quality of life of carers of children with multiple complex impairments, and in the design and analysis of before-after trials, cohort studies and cross sectional studies. I have a particular interest in fostering research capacity in clinical settings in lower resourced settings.
My physiotherapy degree is from the University of Queensland, Australia and my MPH and PhD are from LSHTM. My doctoral research provided evidence to improve services for clubfoot in Africa with Zimbabwe as a case study.
I hold an honorary position with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UK) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I teach on the MSc Study Unit on "Global Disability and Health". I also lecture on Disability on the Diploma of Tropical Nursing and the Diploma of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.
I contribute to the Public Health in Development MSc course as a personal tutor. I supervise MSc students who undertake their summer projects in topics of disability and global health.
Research
My research interest is in disability and Public Health, with a particular focus on the development of innovative interventions for children with disabilities, and their families, in resource constrained settings.
I lead the child development component within ICED and further information about our projects can be found at www.ubuntu-hub.org. I am involved in assessing the impact of physical impairment on the quality of life of children and their carers, in addition to the development of scalable interventions.
My previous work includes a pilot and feasibility study of a parent group intervention for children with congenital zika syndrome in Brazil and Colombia, supporting an early intervention programme in Rwanda, and building partnership, capability and stakeholder engagement with Stellenbosch University to strengthen health systems in South Africa to achieve universal health coverage for people with stroke.
My current work includes using participatory approaches to improve access to healthcare for disabled people in Uganda and evaluating parent group interventions in Zambia.
I support partners through the Global Clubfoot Initiative and am actively involved with the RCUK GCRF group.
Selected Publications
