Dr Raghupathy Anchala

Raghu AnchalaQualifications: MBBS (Armed Forces Medical College, Pune); DTCD – Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases, (BJ Medical College, Pune); MPH (University of Pittsburgh, USA) and PhD (Cambridge, UK)

Raghu is a Chest Physician and a Public Health and Primary Care Specialist, currently working as an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health (PHFI), Hyderabad, India. He has been recently awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship from the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium at the International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK (June 2015 to June 2018; grant amount: £94,000) to test out the feasibility and validation of an innovative device (Portable Eye Examination Kit – PEEK). Peek is a smartphone with a specially fitted lens adapter to capture retinal images that aid in detecting and screening for diabetic and hypertensive retinopathy complications (microvascular complications of diabetes that occur in around 20% of diabetics and among patients suffering from uncontrolled blood pressure respectively).

Raghu was a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholar and a recipient of a Wellcome Trust – PHFI PhD Research Fellowship to pursue his doctoral work on development, testing, validation, piloting, implementation, and evaluating the effectiveness and cost effectiveness clinical decision support systems for management of hypertension in resource constrained primary healthcare settings. He has a PhD in Public Health and Primary Care from the University of Cambridge, UK. Earlier, he was a Future Faculty Fellow, PHFI, and a recipient of the Fogarty Aids International Training Research Project (AITRP), wherein he pursued the Masters in Public Health from Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), University of Pittsburgh, USA (2007-08). He was awarded “Outstanding Masters Student in 2008” by the University of Pittsburgh for his thesis and course work (GPA of 3.99 on a scale of 4; Grade: A+) at the end of the Masters course.

He was the PI for an operational research capacity building (funded by The Union – IUATLD; 24,183 USD) that trained 10 clinicians in research methods, data analysis and report writing and was instrumental in the conversion of the trainees’ project work into peer reviewed publications (eight trainees published at the end of the one year of mentoring).

Key activities

Teaching: Raghu has developed course content and has been teaching on basic and advanced epidemiology, research methods, operational research, drug development, nutritional epidemiology (DL), GCP and clinical trial modules for courses at IIPHH since 2009.

Research: Developing, testing and implementation of Clinical Decision Support Systems for management of NCDs; epidemiology of hypertension, asthma and COPD; systematic reviews and meta-analysis; standardization of lung function testing in primary and secondary care settings; health technology assessment; and role of health information technology in prevention and management of NCDs.

Practice: Translation of clinical practice guidelines in primary healthcare settings.

Significant contribution to research:

(1) Developed, validated, implemented and evaluated the feasibility, adaptability, scalability, effectiveness and cost effectiveness of a clinical decision support system for management of hypertension in primary healthcare settings.

(2) Engaged (and continues to) in capacity building initiatives in operational research and research methods domains for public health practitioners and clinicians in the government sector.

Full profile: http://www.phfi.org/faculty-a-researchers/686

Publications: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=raghupathy+anchala


Dr Stephen Gichuhi

Stephen Gichuhi

Qualifications: MBChB (University of Nairobi), M.Med-Ophthalmology (University of Nairobi), MSc-Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), MBA (University of Leicester), FCOphth-ECSA.

Dr Stephen Gichuhi is an ophthalmologist and epidemiologist from Kenya. He has been conducting studies on the epidemiology and management of ocular surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN) in Kenya for his PhD work at the International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. This was through a fellowship awarded by the British Council for Prevention of Blindness (BCPB). The work involved an integrated set of studies; a case-control study to evaluate risk factors for OSSN, a diagnostic test study to evaluate vital staining for diagnosis of OSSN, a randomized controlled trial of a post-operative adjuvant therapy and examining the barriers to care of OSSN.

Stephen has been an ophthalmologist since 1998 and is a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Ophthalmology. He is particularly drawn to evidence-based medicine in Africa where countries with few resources to apply to healthcare need to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of health interventions. His work with the Cochrane Eyes & Vision Group at the Bloomberg Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the South African Cochrane Centre, the Global Burden of Disease 2010 project, and various clinical trials, gained him experience in research coordination, training in systematic reviews and as a clinical investigator. He was also a site Principal Investigator for a collaborative trial at Kikuyu Eye Unit in Kenya.

Recently he was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship grant from the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium (June 2015 until 2018, £90,000) to conduct a Health Education and Early Detection Study (HEED Study): a pilot project to promote early awareness and referral of OSSN.

Publications: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Gichuhi+S