Dr Armelle Forrer

Biography

Armelle Forrer is an epidemiologist (PhD, MSc) with a background in biology (MSc, BSc) and a certificate in public health.

The overall aim of her work is to develop effective integrated approaches for the surveillance and/or control of water, sanitation, and hygiene-borne neglected tropical diseases caused by worms, and enteric diseases.

She originally specialised on quantitative data analysis and modelling, including spatial statistics.

Armelle’s academic and early work aimed at identifying high risk areas and effective interventions to control helminthic neglected tropical diseases in Cambodia and Lao PDR. She has a specific interest in the potentially fatal yet highly neglected threadworm strongyloides stercoralis.

In 2019, she joined Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and worked with Prof. Joe Turner and Prof. Mark Taylor, assessing interventions for onchocerciasis in Cameroon and designing studies on lymphatic filariasis elimination and morbidity control in Niger and Bangladesh.

Due to persistent gaps in funding for neglected tropical disease intervention impact assessment and monitoring, including the potential emergence of resistance to anthelminthic drugs, she developed an interest in environmental surveillance.

In 2024, Armelle joined Prof. Nicholas Feasey’ s group to expand her research field to environmental surveillance for water-borne and water, sanitation, and hygiene-borne-related diseases in areas with suboptimal access to safe water and sanitation. She is currently leading a research project aimed at developing an environmental surveillance approach for typhoid fever in urban Malawi.

Armelle has a special interest in research integrity and has been a member of the LSTM Research Integrity Working Group for two years.

Research interests

Armelle is particularly interested in developing interventions and public-health actionable surveillance approaches for low-resource settings and diseases affecting the poorest and most vulnerable populations, both in rural and urban areas.

She has a strong interest in methodology, including study design and biostatistics. Not only is epidemiology grounded in statistics, but sound methodology is instrumental to generating evidence-base leading to actual impact on health.

Her current work aims to develop and optimise approaches to detect and measure environmental contamination with agents causing enteric diseases and assess the reliability and performance of environmental surveillance approaches compared to standard clinical approaches for intervention impact assessment, disease monitoring, or early detection of epidemic peaks and preparedness.

Armelle is interested in synergy, both by aiming at developing multi-disease (integrated) approaches and by working across disciplines, and across cultures.

She has worked with parasitologists, statisticians and modellers, health economists, clinicians, geographers, environmental scientists, and molecular biologists. She also regularly works with social scientists as some questions can only be addressed with qualitative and participatory approaches.

Armelle particularly enjoys collaborating with and learning from in-country partners and colleagues, whose knowledge is instrumental to well conducted and successful studies.

Teaching

Armelle teaches epidemiology and basic biostatistics in MSc programmes. She also supervises over bachelor and MSc students, in Lao PDR and in Liverpool at the University of Liverpool and LSTM.

She is also currently supervising a PhD student enrolled in the Medical Research Council- Doctoral Training Partnership programme, Faduma Farah. Faduma’s work aims at assessing the impact of the termination of lymphatic filariasis mass drug administration programme on soil-transmitted helminths.

Selected research publications

The impact of the termination of Lymphatic Filariasis mass drug administration on Soil-transmitted Helminth prevalence in school children in Malawi – Journal: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases – Published: 25th February 2026

Job satisfaction among community drug distributors in the Mass Drug Administration programme in Nigeria: a cross-sectional study – Journal: International Health – Published: 24th March 2023

Infrared Thermal Imaging as a Novel Non-Invasive Point-Of-Care Tool to Assess Filarial Lymphoedema – Journal: Journal of Clinical Medicine – Published: 25th May 2021

Why onchocerciasis transmission persists after 15 annual ivermectin mass drug administrations in South-West Cameroon – Journal: BMJ Global Health – Published: 11th January 2021

Implementation of test-and-treat with doxycycline and temephos ground larviciding as alternative strategies for accelerating onchocerciasis elimination in an area of loiasis co-endemicity: the COUNTDOWN consortium multi-disciplinary study protocol – Journal: Parasites and Vectors – Published: 4th December 2019

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