Rachel is the Research Director for the GCRF Accountability for Informal urban Equity Hub (ARISE) (2019-2024), together with Sally Theobald as PI. This Hub will address the intractable development challenge of ill-health, inequity and insecurity in informal urban settlements in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). More than half of the world’s people live in cities and one in three of these in LMICs live in informal settlements, which pose a wide range of physical and mental health risks, yet receive inadequate services and opportunities to improve their lives. Our Hub brings together ten partners with a range of relevant expertise and commitment to work with disadvantaged people living in informal settlements. Our research will support them in claiming their rights to health and to build government accountability and capacity to provide them with security and services. By sharing experiences across four countries – Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Kenya and India – we hope to shape national and global policies and best practices.
Rachel is the Social Sciences lead for the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Lung Health and Tuberculosis in Africa at LSTM (IMPALA) (2017-2021), and for the Drivers of Antimicrobial Resistance (DRUM) consortium (GCRF) (2018-2021).
She also leads the gender equitable careers theme on the DELTAS Learning Research Programme (2016 – 2020), in collaboration with the Capacity Research Unit. She is senior social Science advisor to the NIHR-funded Global Health Research Group African Collaboration on Sepsis (ARCS) (2018-2020).
Previous research in the last 10 years has included leading LSTM’s contributions to two EU-funded consortia - MATIND, an EU-funded consortium which evaluated two demand-side financing approaches to improving maternal health in India, and INPAC, which aimed to test an intervention to improve post-abortion family planning in China - as well as leading MRC-funded social science research exploring the drivers of child marriage in Sudan. She was also part of the REACHOUT project, which aimed to understand and develop the role of close-to-community providers of health care in rural and urban areas in Africa and Asia.
PHD Students
An advanced cookstove intervention to prevent pneumonia in children under 5 years in Malawi: a qualitative perspective. Jane Ardrey
An examination of barriers and enablers to gender equitable scientific career pathways in African research institutions. Millicent L Liani
Understanding illness experience of NTDs endemic to Liberia: Opportunities and threats for integrated disease management and disability and inclusion strategies. Laura Dean
Understanding vulnerability and empowerment through engagement with biomedical HIV prevention technologies amongst female sex workers in Malawi. Wezzie Lora.
Quality of life among people with chronic lung disease in LMICs. Irene Ayakaka
Exploring opportunities for addressing intimate partner violence in the context of community-based HIV services in Kenya and steps toward testing interventions at community-level. Beate Ringwald
Teaching
Rachel contributes substantial teaching inputs on qualitative research to Research Module (TROP 934) and on social determinants of health, equity, gender and health seeking behaviour to Key Themes in International Health and Policy (TROP 937). She supervises Masters student dissertations. She also teaches on DTMH and Short Course on International Health Consultancy.
Rachel contributes substantial teaching inputs on qualitative research to Research Module (TROP 934) and on social determinants of health, equity, gender and health seeking behaviour to Key Themes in International Health and Policy (TROP 937). She supervises Masters student dissertations. She also teaches on DTMH, DRH and Short Course on International Health Consultancy.