Helen's research focuses on adolescent health, including mental health, sleep health, menstrual health, and sexual & reproductive health including HIV infection in low-income settings. She has collaborated on many observational and intervention studies, including studies of interventions to improve uptake of HIV testing, linkage-to-care and adherence particularly among young people in southern Africa. Work on mental health includes randomised controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness of lay health-worker delivered counselling interventions for depression, anxiety and alcohol use disorders.

Helen is Principal Investigator of the MENISCUS trial to evaluate the impact of a school-based menstrual health intervention in Uganda (funded by the Joint Global Health Trial Scheme), and the MRC-funded Better Sleep Better Health study to develop an intervention to improve sleep health among school-going adolescents in Uganda. She is a Co-I on a range of adolescent health and mental health related intervention studies. 

Helen has a specific interest in capacity strengthening and is PI of the MRC International Statistics and Epidemiology Partnership which aims to strengthen and sustain an African-centered network of applied medical statisticians.