Dr Jalemba Aluvaala
Contact information
Podcast interviews
The treatment and outcomes of care for sick newborns

Care for even the sickest newborns in many countries is limited by the resources available but there are some key interventions that can save lives. Delivering these interventions requires doctors and nurses to work together and often it is the continuous care provided by the nursing team together with families that is critical. Despite this a number of babies die and understanding risks is important to help provide information to families, to help plan care and should help us design better systems of care. This interview was recorded in 2018
Newborn care in Kenyan hospitals

Dr Jalemba Aluvaala works for SIRCLE, a Consortium for National Health Research, collaboration between KEMRI - Wellcome Trust Research Programme, the University of Nairobi, College of Health Sciences and the Ministry of Medical Services. SIRCLE aims to build capacity for high quality health services and implementation research, and promote clinical excellence by engaging trainee researchers in policy relevant research. This interview was recorded in 2014
Jalemba Aluvaala
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Jalemba Aluvaala is a post-doctoral researcher with an interest in perinatal-neonatal clinical and health services research. After training in Paediatrics and Epidemiology, he completed a DPhil at the Nuffield Department of Medicine. He developed prognostic models using routine data to predict in-hospital mortality in the neonatal unit.
He leads the neonatal component of the Clinical Information Network (CIN-N) at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust in Nairobi. The CIN is a collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, Kenya Paediatric association and county hospitals to support improvement in collection and analysis of hospital inpatient information to support audit, service evaluation, and quality improvement. He also holds a research track post as a Research Fellow/Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, School of Medicine, University of Nairobi.
Research groups
Recent publications
Evaluating the effects of increasing nursing numbers on quality of newborn care in understaffed neonatal units in Kenya: a prospective intervention study
Journal article
Imam A. et al, (2025), BMJ Quality & Safety
Developing context-sensitive, comprehensive newborn care protocols: integrating technologies with clinical care pathways for level 2 newborn units in Kenya.
Journal article
Irimu G. et al, (2025), Journal of global health, 15
The Five-minute Apgar Score and Adverse Short-term Outcomes in Neonates - a Cohort Study in the Clinical Information Network Hospitals in Kenya
Journal article
Karing'u P. et al, (2025), Wellcome Open Research, 10, 333 - 333
Situational analysis of antibiotic prescriptions in Kenyan neonatal units for antimicrobial stewardship: a retrospective longitudinal study
Journal article
Aluvaala J. et al, (2025), eClinicalMedicine, 82, 103156 - 103156
Effect of diet video-drama and telephone messages on improving parental knowledge and diet diversity of malnourished children in Kenya: A randomised controlled trial.
Journal article
Mutai BC. et al, (2025), PLOS global public health, 5