Contacts: Dr Karen Devries, Dipak Naker
Partners: Raising Voices, UCL-IoE and Makerere University
Major donors: MRC/DfiD/Wellcome Trust (Joint Global Health Trials Scheme, MR/L004321/1, to K Devries), Hewlett Foundation, The Oak Foundation, The Sigrid Rausuing Trust and American Jewish World Service (to D Naker)

Reducing violence in Ugandan primary schools. One of the first cluster-randomised controlled trials of an intervention to reduce violence from school staff to students. The study also included qualitative research, a process evaluation and economic evaluation.

One of the most common forms of violence against children in East Africa is physical violence perpetrated by school staff, but no interventions to reduce this violence have been rigorously evaluated for effectiveness. The Good School Toolkit, developed by Ugandan NGO Raising Voices, aims to reduce this and other violence against children in schools. In 2012, Raising Voices approached LSHTM for assistance to evaluate the impact of the Good School Toolkit in Ugandan primary schools.

Contacts: Dr Karen Devries
Partners and donors: Plan International, Plan International Malawi, Plan International Uganda, Plan International Norway, Plan International Finland, Plan International UK

Protecting children with disabilities.

Plan International has commissioned us to conduct research to:

• assess to what extent children with disabilities are included in community-based child protection mechanisms;
• identify the barriers and enablers to inclusion within these mechanisms;
• make practical recommendations to Plan International, governments and other key stakeholders for more inclusive practice.

Contacts: Dr Karen Devries
Partners: Makerere University, UCL

Developing an evidence base and platform for action around how violence in childhood and adolescence affects child labour, participation in skills programmes and employment outcomes in Uganda.

This study will use international as well as Ugandan data and combines analysis of existing quantitative data with primary qualitative data collection.

Contacts: Alison Elliott
Partners and donors: Medical Research Council (MRC)

How people respond to vaccines, and how well they work, varies between populations. POPVAC’s goal is to understand these differences in order to identify strategies of improving vaccine effectiveness. The POPVAC projects - A, B, C - are a set of three, linked clinical trials which share core elements of study design and procedures, allowing comparison of outcomes across projects.

Contacts: Dr Karen Devries, Dipak Naker
Partners: Raising Voices
Donors: Medical Research Council (to K Devries)

Pilot RCT of a complex violence prevention intervention.

The Good School Toolkit, developed by Ugandan NGO Raising Voices, reduces violence from school staff to students, and peer violence between students, in Ugandan primary schools.

Contacts: Dr Caroline Lynch, Professor Catherine Goodman
Partners and donors: MSD, through its MSD for Mothers programme

We conduct multidisciplinary research on the role of the private and public health sectors in delivering maternal and reproductive health care.

Our evaluations are generating evidence on the use, quality, equity and market dynamics of private maternal health services, and whether interventions such as social franchising can increase access to lifesaving care for all women.

Contacts: Ana Buller, Lottie Howard-Merrill, Marjorie Pichon, Nambusi Kyegombe, Joyce Wamoyi

Exploring the potential of communities and social norms to prevent violence against and exploitation of children and adolescents.

The Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse (LINEA) is an international and multi-pronged project exploring how social norm theory can be used to prevent the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and adolescents globally. Centring adolescent girls, LINEA aims to provide an alternative to research and programmes, which have traditionally focussed on providing girls with skills and information. Instead, LINEA aims to better understand and address the interdependence of human behaviour and the structural realities that shape the individual experience of adolescent girls. LINEA was established in 2014 and is nested within Gender Violence and Health Centre (GHVC) at LSHTM.

Contacts: Karen Devries, Clare Tanton, Louise Knight, Camilla Fabbri, Ellen Turner, Amiya Bhati
Partners and donors: UK MRC, DfID, Wellcome Trust, UBS Foundation, Save the Children, Plan International, Graines de Paix, and Raising Voices, Makerere University, the AfriChild Center, MRC-UVRI Uganda

Bringing a public health approach to prevention of violence in childhood and adolescence, and to improving child protection internationally. We conduct research to understand the causes and consequences of violence; to develop, adapt and evaluate interventions to reduce violence; and to improve research methodology in the field of child protection.