I conduct quantitative research on the social determinants of health, largely in sub-Saharan Africa especially South Africa. Much of my current work focuses on how social connections affect health outcomes, through the lens of social networks. My primary current research project is a longitudinal whole-community study of influences around sexual behaviour in rural KwaZulu-Natal. In all my research I evaluate how social support and interaction can provide positive health outcomes: both the avoidance of unwanted infections such as HIV, and successful management of health conditions. This work has led me to start researching the health of older adults, particularly around dementia. I have also researched the social patterning of tuberculosis and HIV in Brazil, bacterial sexually transmitted infections in the United States and Covid-19 in South Africa. 

I am always concerned about data quality, which has led me to conduct research on field methods. This includes trials of methods to help respondents report sensitive data (e.g. sexual behaviour, history of abuse), including use of computer-based self-reporting and nonverbal response cards. Interviewer behaviour has a substantial impact on the data collected, and I have worked to understand how this happens and how we can account for it in analysis. I have overseen primary data collection in South Africa, Tanzania and Burkina Faso, and have also been involved in studies in Uganda and Zambia. For these studies we have used OpenDataKit, CommCare, REDCap and Network Canvas data capture software.  Analytically, I work in Stata, R and Python to appropriately manage dependencies between data, including hierarchical, spatial and network modelling. 

Potential students interested in conducting research on the topics and with communities in the settings outlined above are welcome to get in touch.