¹û¶³Ö±²¥ÊÓƵ

My research interest would now be called data science. Over the 30 years I have worked at LSHTM, I have worked in almost all aspects of public health with the common aspect being how we collect data and how data and technology is used, especially in field based research and trials.

My three main research interests:

How data is collected. The advent of big data, sensors, and digital technology in general have led to an array or new data sources being available. My research is around how we can leverage these in public health research, especially in low and middle income countries. Example of research include, the use of satellite imagery for population or mortality estimation. Crowd sourcing, community engagement and rapid data collection during emergencies. I have used crowd sourcing methods for over 2 decades, but advances in technology have allowed new and novel applications in the last decade. The covid19 pandemic highlighted the importance of crowdsourcing as a way of collecting information, both to deal with the complexity of working in a global pandemic and when trips to the field was not possible.

Advances in technology. We live in a digital age and advances in technology seem to haven almost daily. My research looks at how we can best use these in public health research: the use of new sensors, or machine learning or deep learning to generate the data required. How we visualize data and results both during studies and to engage with populations, and ways it can be used to better run large field trials and studies.

Another theme that runs through a lot of my research is how to better engage with communities and to build capacity in country. Many of my data collect methods look at how to involve the communities themselves in a way that both engages, and benefits them. Finally in almost every project I work on in LMICs there is some aspect of capacity strengthening in GIS and datascience.