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Ernest Guevarra

Senior Research and Teaching Associate

MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford

I am an independent public health consultant with more than 20 years of professional experience in community and public health in humanitarian crises and developing country-settings, including as a community health worker, medical doctor, and most recently as the Head of Valid Measures, the specialised metrics, analytics and technology unit of Valid International. I have expertise in spatial epidemiology, geo-statistics, cartography and statistical programming. In my role as head of Valid Measures, I led the design, development and implementation of innovative surveys and assessments on health and nutrition and bespoke analytical approaches that leverage the advantages of Bayesian statistics and resampling techniques. I am a founding member of Katilingban, a collective of public health and nutrition experts and practitioners. I am currently a consulting research data scientist for EcoHealth Alliance to support its computational analytics work in support of pandemic preparedness and One Health research and a Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.

Interests

  • Public Health and Nutrition
  • Spatial Epidemiology
  • R

Education

  • Master of Public Health, 2005

    Harvard School of Public Health

  • Certificate in Humanitarian Studies, 2005

    Harvard School of Public Health

  • Doctor of Medicine, 2001

    University of the Philippines

  • BSc in Basic Medical Sciences, 1998

    University of the Philippines

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Senior Research and Teaching Associate

MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford

Oct 2023 – Present Oxford, UK

Lecture postgraduate students on topics related to famines, development and humanitarian interventions for health, and evaluation methods for development and health

Lead the organisation and teaching of module on Open Science and Reproducible Research in R

 
 
 
 
 

Consulting Research Data Scientist

EcoHealth Alliance

May 2022 – Present New York, NY

Support the creation of a database of active infectious disease research activities and research scientists in Africa

Conduct training in how to use the database and background in priority zoonoses

Provide Africa Centres for Disease Control and member states with direct technical support and subject matter expertise in One Health and zoonotic disease

Programmatically develop pipeline to acquire, standardise, and aggregate suitable data sources for the prediction of accidental introduction of zoonotic disease and organise the data in a version-controlled, structured database usable for analysis and modelling

Fit model to predict the frequency/risk of accidental zoonotic disease introduction in a country, based on a network representation of linkages between source and destination countries

Support model testing, performance assessment, and iterative model refinements to improve model suitability

 
 
 
 
 

Research Data Scientist

EcoHealth Alliance

Dec 2020 – Dec 2021 New York, NY

Develop, maintain, update, and refine models of COVID-19 infection, spread and associated processes

Develop, maintain, update, and refine reports, visualisations, and dashboards of disease data and model results

Write and edit reports and summaries of results for various health, policy, public, and scientific audiences

Provide analyses and visualisations in response to inquiries from project partners and policy makers

Maintain, refactor, and document computer code for sharing, reuse, and publication

Support organizational data management, infrastructure, and modelling practices

 
 
 
 
 

Founding Member

Katilingban

Jul 2020 – Present Global

Leads the development and implementation of the strategic direction of the collective

Leads the analytics and software development services unit of the collective

 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Fellow

MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford

Jul 2020 – Oct 2023 Oxford
Lectured postgraduate students on topics related to famines, development and humanitarian interventions for health, and evaluation methods for development and health
 
 
 
 
 

Member and Contributor

Oxford COVID-19 Modelling Consortium Philippines Team

Jul 2020 – Present Oxford

Provided technical guidance and capacity building to the Philippines country team in adapting the CoMo Consortium model to the Philippine context

Developed analytical tools in R language for statistical computing to support the country team’s modelling efforts

 
 
 
 
 

Head of Measures

Valid International Ltd

Apr 2017 – Jun 2020 Oxford, United Kingdom

Led design, development and implementation of innovative approaches, techniques and products for surveys and assessments focusing on health and nutrition for purposes of programme monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, programme coverage and access or any other metric/indicator estimation

Led the design and development of bespoke analytical techniques and the accompanying programming scripts and workflows for estimating various metrics/indicators, specifically leveraging Bayesian statistics, resampling approaches and Monte Carlo methods

Trained and supervised a team of 5 survey technicians and data analysts

 
 
 
 
 

Surveys and Assessments Specialist

Valid International Ltd

Jan 2015 – Mar 2017 Oxford, United Kingdom

Led Valid International’s Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) coverage assessment team and has conducted coverage surveys in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Nigeria, Niger, India and Ghana.

Pioneered the design and development of specially designed methods to assess CMAM coverage such as Semi-Quantitative Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SQUEAC) and Simplified Lot Quality Assurance Sampling Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SLEAC).

Co-developed a spatial sampling technique called Simple Spatial Sampling Method (S3M) for use in large-scale multi-indicator surveys that reports and maps indicator results at high spatial resolution at a national or regional level.

Co-developed a low-cost, rapid assessment method for assessing nutritional status of children, women and elderly.

 
 
 
 
 

Technical Advisor

Valid International Ltd

Jun 2010 – Dec 2014 Oxford, United Kingdom
Provided technical support and evaluation of nutrition programmes for the treatment of severe and moderate acute malnutrition. Worked on all areas related to the design and implementation of CMAM programmes, including: identification of barriers to health services; establishment of outpatient clinics in local health centres; case-finding; advice on logistics of community outreach programmes; advice on integration of systems with local, regional and national ministry of health programmes; training programmes for partner NGOs and local ministry of health medical and logistics staff; support and evaluation of programme systems including community outreach, case-finding, programme admission, triage and referral, discharge, case follow up and patient recording systems; establishment of stabilisation centres within hospitals; and evaluation of nutrition programmes at all stages.
 
 
 
 
 

Trainee

Valid International Ltd

Sep 2009 – May 2010 Oxford, United Kingdom
Supported the lead consultants and experts in the setup, monitoring and evaluation of community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programmes #in various countries.
 
 
 
 
 

Child Protection Advisor

Save the Children UK

Sep 2007 – Oct 2008 Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
Provided technical advice, practical field level lead and mentoring to the child protection programme teams in three districts of the Eastern Province #of Sri Lanka, with a focus on the UNICEF-funded project on reintegration of children affected by armed conflict, particularly those associated with armed groups.
 
 
 
 
 

Emergency Focal Point

UNICEF Somalia

Jan 2007 – Mar 2007 Mogadishu, Somalia
Charged with the direct emergency preparedness and response for the child protection section which involved managing emergency assessments in areas #relevant to UNICEF’s core commitments to children during emergencies on child protection and HIV/AIDS, and ensuring systems and actions are in place to meet these #commitments.
 
 
 
 
 

Psychosocial Coordinator

International Rescue Committee

Oct 2005 – Aug 2006 Kitgum, Uganda
Oversaw the strengthening of IRC’s psychosocial programme activities by integrating them into other key activities such as economic development, #HIV/AIDS, and community dialogue/peace-building, and through conducting training and other capacity building activities for IRC’s local partners.
 
 
 
 
 

Community Organiser and Project Manager

Balik Kalipay

Jan 2002 – Aug 2004 Pikit, North Cotabato, Philippines
Implemented a psychosocial support program for children through training and debriefing of teacher and youth volunteers and facilitation and organization of community #support and participation; Supervised staff community trainers; Provided emergency medical and psychiatric services; Contributed to project evaluation and management – administrative and financial oversight.

Publications

Impact evaluation of the World Food Programme's moderate acute malnutrition treatment and prevention programmes in Sudan

This impact evaluation assessed the effectiveness of the World Food Programmes’s (WFP) ongoing food-based prevention of moderate …

Household Coverage of Fortified Staple Food Commodities in Rajasthan, India

A spatially representative statewide survey was conducted in Rajasthan, India to assess household coverage of atta wheat flour, edible …

Assessing Program Coverage of Two Approaches to Distributing a Complementary Feeding Supplement to Infants and Young Children in Ghana

The work reported here assesses the coverage achieved by two sales-based approaches to distributing a complementary food supplement …

Assessing Coverage of Targeted and Large-scale Fortification Programs: Development of a Fortification Assessment Coverage Tool (FACT)

To develop and operationalize a survey tool that can be used by nutrition programmers to assess and classify coverage and consumption …

A single coverage estimator for use in SQUEAC, SLEAC, and other CMAM coverage assessments

A new single coverage estimator is proposed that is a measure of overall programme performance. It can be used with existing survey …

Recent Posts

A Simple Approach to Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) Programs

This handbook covers the types of outcomes used in CEA analyses, the creation of counterfactuals to model the absence of an …

oxcgrt: An Interface to the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker API

Facilitating access to the OxCGRT data in R

covidphdata: An Interface to the Philippines Department of Health COVID-19 Data Drop

An R package providing a coherent, robust and performant API to the Philippines COVID-19 data

Do not go gentle into that good night

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. - Nelson Mandela

We are Katilingban

We are a collective of multi-disciplinary experts and practitioners of public health and nutrition.

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Overview of Evaluation Methods

Overview of Evaluation Methods

Assessing coverage of community-based management of acute malnutrition

Assessing coverage of community-based management of acute malnutrition

Contact