December 2019 Newsletter

UCL Global Health

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As we move into the festive season and 2019 draws to a close, I hope you will enjoy reading our latest newsletter, which is packed with positive and interesting stories of developments in global health.

We have the privilege, at the Institute for Global Health, of being able to select highly able and promising applicants for our programmes. These students come from a diverse range of backgrounds and one of them, a recent masters graduate named Justine Gosling, has written for The Daily Telegraph about her experiences as a mature student here. I would encourage everyone to read Justine’s excellent article.

One of the elements that makes our teaching so successful is the quality of the education team, and we’re delighted that our senior teaching fellow, Shivani Singh, has been announced as winner of the UCL MBBS award for top teacher, for Year 3 of the iBSc. Winners are decided by the total number of nominations from students, and it’s the third time that Shivani has won.

Double congratulations to Shivani as she has just been appointed as our director of education, taking over from Dr Nigel Field from the start of the next term.

Shivani (right) with UCL colleague Tim Shand (centre)
and artist and writer Grayson Perry (left)
at October's Engendering Men's Health event

Three of our professors are principal investigators on two ground breaking studies which have been selected for UCL’s #MadeAtUCL shortlist. Please cast your vote for Natsal (Prof Cath Mercer and Prof Pam Sonnenberg) and PARTNER (Prof Alison Rodger) by 6^thDecember. Both of IGH’s finalists would be deserving winners if they can achieve the most votes, although I’m sure their teams would argue that it’s not just the quantitative, but the qualitative, that counts!

The publication of the 2019 annual report of one of our flagship engagement initiatives, Lancet Countdown led by Dr Nick Watts, is a key highlight since the last newsletter. We are very delighted by the reach and impact of the work on this important aspect of global health – climate change.

Our researchers continue to receive much deserved global recognition for their work. Prof Alison Rodger was awarded the prestigious European Hector Research Award in HIV and Prof Andrew Phillips won the EACS award for excellence in HIV Care.

Finally, I wish to highlight the scholarship opportunities available to support current and new students which are summarised in this newsletter.

I'd like to wish everyone all the best for Christmas and the New Year!

Professor Ibrahim Abubakar
Director, UCL Institute for Global Health

News & Activities

Gender snaps

Enthusiastic photographers may wish to enter Global Health 50/50’s inaugural photo competition, #ThisisGender. Entry is free, entrants retain their copyright, and first prize is £500 with the winning image gracing the cover of the 2020 Global Health 50/50 report. The deadline for entries is 5^th January 2020.

Further details are on the project website, or visit the Centre’s new Instagram account. Good luck!

#ThisIsGender

Making sound waves

Professor Alison Rodger was a guest recently on the UCL Minds podcast. Alison spoke alongside Simon Collins, HIV positive treatment advocate at I-Base, about the PARTNER2 study into rates of HIV transmission from HIV+ patients receiving antiretroviral treatment.

Alison and Simon join the podcast from just over 22 minutes in.

UCL Minds podcast

That's magic

Congratulations to our own Dr Joanna Morrison and her colleague Kohenour Akter (pictured) of the Diabetic Association of Bangladesh. They took first prize at GACD 2019 in Bangkok for their D-Magic process evaluation poster.

Read the full article

Meat-free meetings

IGH staff have decided to avoid ordering meat products for all future meeting and event catering.

This initiative has been agreed on for primarily environmental reasons.

Spotlight on...

HepCare Europe

The HepCare project aimed to develop a model of care that links primary, secondary, outreach and community care and treatment for underserved populations at risk of HCV across four EU sites (Ireland, UK, Spain, and Romania).

The HepCare team recruited participants nested within the Find&Treat team’s Mobile Health Unit. The service provides health screening for underserved groups across London using community interventions and specialist outreach workers.

The team has recently been presenting its work at conferences. Pictured here at Addictions in Lisbon are two peer workers, John Gibbons and Jim Conneely.

The project's first paper has just been published - read it on the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy website.

A new network has been launched by a group of academics, led by Dr Rochelle Burgess, to share research and ideas addressing the mental health impacts of child marriage. Please have a look at their website to learn more.

The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change

The Lancet Countdown, hosted here at the IGH, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration that brings together 35 leading universities and UN agencies from across the globe to track the world’s response to climate change, and the benefits this brings for our health.

Their report was launched on 13^th November and received extensive media coverage all over the world. If you only have time to read one of the 2,200+ resulting mainstream media stories, we suggest this Daily Telegraph op-ed from UCL Associate Professor (and children’s TV favourite!) Chris van Tulleken. See a round-up of other articles here.

For further reading, the website features a wealth of resources including videos, infographics, executive summary (in French, Mandarin, German, and Spanish as well as English), policy briefs as well as a data platform.

Upcoming Events

Photographic exhibition: ‘Portrait of a Community: Food, Gardening and Lives Travelled’

In the summer of 2018 Carlos Grijalva Eternod, nutritional epidemiologist, UCL IGH, Rodney Reynolds, anthropologist, UCL IGH, and Ritu Sood, freelance artist, spent time with a group of gardening elders at the Calthorpe Community Garden, London. This exhibition presents their observations that speak of food, health, social bonds and migration.

In the South Cloisters of UCL’s Wilkins Building until 13^th December. Further details

Image copyright Ritu Sood 2019

Interactive workshop: Mindful Walking Project

You could also visit the Calthorpe Community Garden in person when it hosts an interactive workshop for the Mindful Walking Project on 3^rd December.

You will get a taste of sensory embodiment, learn more about the project, the methodology and what the team learned so far. The team also plans to discuss what it means to move from a sensory embodied place, explore related concepts like biophily and how to can expand the project/methodology. All are welcome!

Calthorpe Project, 5.30-8.00pm, Tuesday, 3^rd December. Register here.

Film premiere and panel: Gender Violence in the Amazon of Peru: Abrazados

Join us for the Abrazados Film premiere and a dynamic international panel discussing innovative ways communities in low resource settings such as the Amazon of Peru can mobilise to prevent violence.

Kennedy Lecture Theatre, 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday, 4th December. Register here

Professor Pam Sonnenberg gave a thoroughly entertaining and enlightening inaugural lecture on 30th October. Pam spoke about her journey from South African medical student to a leader of multi-disciplinary research teams. Pam’s story will resonate with people of all backgrounds. You can watch the lecture here – highly recommended!

The UCL Centre for Global Non-Communicable Diseases has begun a new season of their successful ‘In conversation…’ seminar series featuring talks from esteemed visiting speakers. On 16th October they hosted Prof David Leon (pictured right with Dr Taavi Tillmann) for a fascinating discussion on what we can learn from life expectancy changes in Russia. Then on 20th November Prof John Gibson talked about sugar tax. Further seminars will be announced soon – please follow the Centre’s twitter account for news.

Recent Events

Romania increases its investment in TB active case finding

Representatives from E-DETECT TB met with politicians in Bucharest on 9th October to discuss next steps for tuberculosis screening among high-risk groups in Romania. Over 100 stakeholders including representatives from the Ministry of Health and Presidential Administration, MPs, NGOs and members of the civil society community, doctors and journalists attended the landmark meeting.

The project has been screening thousands of people in hard-to-reach communities around Southern Romania since the launch of its customised mobile x-ray unit last year. The success of this approach has led to Romania’s government investing a further €15 million in similar units to travel around the country.

At the 17^th European AIDS Conference in Basel, Prof Alison Rodger received the prestigious European Hector Research Award in HIV. Colleague Prof Andrew Phillips took the EACS award for excellence in HIV Care.

Andrew’s outstanding reputation was further cemented when he was included in Clarivate’s ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2019’ list, which recognises authors of the most influential research papers around the world.

On October 30-31 representatives from WHO, iDSI, DCP3, Tufts Medical Centre, MSH, Centre for Global Development, University of York, LSHTM and HE2RO attended a HIPtool (Health Interventions Prioritization tool) Advisory Group meeting co-led by the UCL Centre for Global Health Economics and the World Bank. Participants provided feedback on applications of HIPtool , suggestions for future development and partnerships/collaborations, and insights into building local capacity to use the tool.

UCL CGHE leads the development of HIPtool, an open-source, online interface intended to facilitate health benefits package design and priority setting discussions for UHC at a national level. The tool has now been used in Afghanistan, Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe, and analyses are ongoing or upcoming in several other countries.

A small team from the EGA Institute for Women's Health recently visited India to carry out fetal echocardiography workshops at AIIMS Hospital Delhi and Sonam Norboo Memorial (SNM) Hospital Leh.

With assistance from the UCL Global Challenge fund, Sara Hillman, Clinical Training Fellow/NIHR Lecturer, organised for Mr Pranav Pandya, Dr Robert Yates, Dr Michelle Carr and Ms Joanne Wolfenden to visit, lecture and demonstrate prenatal fetal echocardiography skills in two hospitals in India.

Doctors in Leh had asked specifically for a clinical workshop in this area, having identified that congenital cardiac disease is more prevalent at high altitude and better antenatal detection would improve care for pregnant women and their babies.

The EGA IfWH has a longstanding relationship with both hospitals, having worked with them in a research capacity for the last 6 years, however, these successful clinical workshops were the first of what they hope will become a regular feature.

Some more of our recent research

Patterns of sexualised recreational drug use and its association with risk behaviours and sexual health outcomes in men who have sex with men in London, UK: a comparison of cross-sectional studies conducted in 2013 and 2016

In the BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, PhD candidate Tyrone Curtis and colleagues from the IGH report findings from their survey of gay and bisexual men at gay venues across London in 2013 and 2016. The authors look at reporting of sexualised drug use (chemsex) and its associations with STI risk behaviours and HIV testing.

Mortality and recovery following moderate and severe acute malnutrition in children aged 6–18 months in rural Jharkhand and Odisha, eastern India: A cohort study

Prof Audrey Prost et al, writing in PLOS Medicine, find that severe acute malnutrition in children under six months in rural Jharkhand and Odisha is common and persistent, but case fatality is around 1%, much lower than the 10-20% estimated by WHO.

Do Health Interventions Support Peace Through “Disaster Diplomacy?”

Professor Ilan Kelman writes for Peace Review about the merits of “health diplomacy” interventions in disaster and conflict zones.

Feminisation of the health workforce and wage conditions of health professions: an exploratory analysis

In this article for Human Resources for Health, authors from IGH led by Dr Geordan Shannon use a gender analysis to explore if the feminisation of the global health workforce leads to a deterioration of wage conditions in health.

Tuberculosis following renal transplantation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: a national registry-based cohort study

Among a nationwide cohort of renal transplant recipients, TB incidence was highest in the first year post-transplant. Asian ethnicity and CMV seropositivity were independent risk factors for post-transplant TB, according to findings from Dr Rishi Gupta, Prof Ibrahim Abubakar and their co-authors in the European Respiratory Journal.

Social interventions: a new era for global mental health?

In The Lancet Psychiatry, Dr Rochelle Burgess and her co-authors describe how they believe social interventions can achieve improvements in mental health worldwide.

Cost-effectiveness of conditional cash transfers to retain women in the continuum of care during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period: protocol for an economic evaluation of the Afya trial in Kenya

Can conditional cash transfers be a cost effective strategy to retain women in the continuum of care during pregnancy? Read the protocol for the economic evaluation of the Afya trial by Dr Neha Batura, Prof Jolene Skordis, Hassan Haghparast-Bidgoli and colleagues at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and SWAP, Kenya.

Study at UCL

Courses in early 2020

We have a few places available on the following courses:

Short courses
Research in Action: the Qualitative Approach
Essentials of Global Child Health
(both of the above run from 13th to 31st January 2020, with classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays)

Long course
Anthropological Perspectives in Global Health
10am-1pm every Wednesday from 15th January to 25th March 2020

Please email igh.adminsc@ucl.ac.uk for further information.

Funding to study at UCL

We're pleased to let you know about various opportunities to receive financial support to study at the Institute.

Students in Commonwealth countries interested in applying for a place on one of our MSc programmes may be eligible for a scholarship covering their tuition fees, accommodation and a stipend to cover living costs. We have two of these scholarship places on offer and the deadline for applications is 18th December.

Details of the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Scheme, along with other funding opportunities, are on our website.

The 2020 call is now open for the AHRI/UCL PhD studentship and MSc scholarship. These opportunities are open to applicants who permanently reside in South Africa.

Find out more about the PhD studentship (applications close 30th April 2020)
Find out more about the MSc scholarship (applications close 31st March 2020)

UCL’s main research scholarship schemes are also now open for 2020/21 entry. For details on applications to study at IGH, please visit our website. Applications must be sent to the Institute for consideration by 1800 GMT on 3rd January 2020.

Research grant funding opportunities

We won’t usually be detailing funding calls in this newsletter, but readers based at UCL may be interested in signing up to the UCL Global Research Funding Newsletter. It’s sent out monthly and compiled by the Research Coordination Office in the UCL Office of the Vice-Provost (Health).

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