Professor Rashida Ferrand
Clinical Professor - HCC
I obtained my primary medical degree from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and completed my postgraduate training in internal medicine and clinical specialist training in HIV Medicine and Sexual Health in London. I undertook a Distance-Based Learning Masters in Epidemiology at LSHTM while working as a clinical lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe Medical School. Following completion of clinical specialist and doctoral research training, I have worked at LSHTM- my research based mainly in Southern Africa and Pakistan.
I am an epidemiologist and my research interests include adolescent health, HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH), and multimorbidity. I develop and evaluate public health interventions including individual and cluster randomised trials.
I was based in Harare, Zimbabwe for 20 years, where I established an interdisciplinary research programme (The Health Research Unit Zimbabwe (THRU ZIM:https://www.thruzim.org/)), embedded within the Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI)- my host institution.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I enjoy teaching and contribute to various MSc modules at LSHTM. I am Module co-organiser of the Epidemiology In Practice MSc module. I also teach on the Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) and am the Lead for the DTM&H course section on Decolonising Global Health.
I supervise several MSc projects every year and particularly welcome hosting MSc students who want to embed their projects within ongoing research studies at THRU ZIM and want to visit Zimbabwe. I currently supervise 3 PhD students and 1 DrPH student as a primary supervisor and am an associate supervisor/advisor for a further 6 students. We host interns, undergraduate, post-graduate and post-doctoral students from Zimbabwean and international academic institutions at THRU ZIM.
I am the Director of a PhD programme for Health Professionals called CREATE (https://www.create-phd.org/), which is training 50 doctoral students from the UK and from Africa in global health.
Research
My PhD, funded through a Wellcome Trust Clinical Tropical Training Fellowship, investigated the clinical epidemiology of adolescents with perinatally-acquired HIV. This was followed by two further Wellcome Trust Fellowships through which I investigated interventions to improve outcomes across the HIV care cascade (from HIV testing to linkage to care and achieving viral suppression) among children and young people, and integration of HIV and sexual and reproductive and other health services
I am currently working on approaches to promote a shift away from syndromic to aetiological approaches for management of sexually transmittted infections (STIs) including STI screening in HIV and antenatal care services and in community-based settings. I lead a trial (PROMISE) that investigates whether screening for sexually transmitted infections in pregnancy improves birth outcomes. PROMISE is recruiting nearly 13,000 pregnant women.
My other main area of current research is multimorbidity across the life-course, particularly associated with HIV. I conduct clinical and pathogenesis studies on chronic comorbidities associated with HIV infection among children and adolescents, particularly respiratory, cardiac, musculoskeletal, neurocognitive disease and skin disease. I lead a Wellcome-funded consortium that is investigating accerated biological ageing in children with HIV as a potential mechansim that drives HIV-associated comorbidities.
I work on evaluation of multimorbidity prevention, screening and care packages for different population groups; I am the Zimbabwe lead for the FRACTURES E3 consortium (https://www.fractures-e3.com/) that is investigating the epidemiology, economic impact and ethnography of fragility fractures in Sub-Saharan Africa.
I am a co-investigator on studies i) developing and evaluating "check-up" visits in adolescence to identify and manage common health problems combined with health promotion; and ii) a study developing and evaluating an intervention package to promote healthy ageing.
I hold a visiting Professorship at Aga Khan University, Karachi. My work in Pakistan focuses on developing primary healthcare models and community-based approaches for managing cardiometabolic multimorbidity.
Selected Publications
