Professor Sonia Lewycka
Contact information
Research groups
Sonia Lewycka
Associate Professor
- OUCRU Epidemiologist
Sonia is an epidemiologist working at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Hanoi. She uses population-based studies to evaluate the coverage, equity, and impact of public health interventions and programmes. She is interested in the application of social learning and collective action approaches to improve health behaviours. She previously used Participatory Learning and Action and peer-led interventions to improve maternal and child survival in Malawi, and is currently applying similar approaches to behaviour change interventions to tackle inappropriate antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance in Vietnam. She leads the Collective Action Against AMR (Co-ACT) study, a whole system intervention that combines education-based and engagement-based approaches to address unnecessary antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across healthcare, community, and farm settings.
Sonia’s other implementation research related to AMR includes a pragmatic trial of point-of-care diagnostics to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use at primary healthcare level (ICAT), and a pilot study to explore the feasibility and acceptability of point-of-care testing in community pharmacies to target over-the-counter antibiotic sales. Alongside this, she is using population datasets to analyse global distributions and determinants of antibiotic use. By linking these population-datasets with climate data, she is building geospatial models to look at the relationship between climate and AMR, as well as mathematical models to identify intervention points with the largest potential for impact on antibiotic use and resistance.
Sonia is also interested in social determinants of health and health inequalities, and was an advisor to UNICEF/GAVI on evaluating missed opportunities for vaccination and trends in vaccination coverage equity in low and middle income countries. Sonia maintains strong connections with the University of Auckland and AUT in New Zealand, where she worked on population-based research in child, youth, and family health, and continues to collaborate on research related to indigenous and migrant health inequalities.
Sonia co-leads the SPEAR (Social Public Engagement and Action Research) Project about understanding the socio-cultural impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, Nepal, and Vietnam. She has also led community engagement projects related to AMR, including Photovoice stories about antibiotic use, and Antibioship, a serious game about AMR.
Recent publications
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Conducting Social Science Research During Epidemics and Pandemics: Lessons Learnt
Van Nuil JI. et al, (2023), Qualitative Health Research, 33, 815 - 827
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Point-of-care testing in private pharmacy and drug retail settings: a narrative review.
Chan JTN. et al, (2023), BMC infectious diseases, 23
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Implementation of point-of-care testing of C-reactive protein concentrations to improve antibiotic targeting in respiratory illness in Vietnamese primary care: a pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial
Do NTT. et al, (2023), The Lancet Infectious Diseases
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Spatiotemporal Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta Variants during Large Nationwide Outbreak of COVID-19, Vietnam, 2021
Tam NT. et al, (2023), Emerging Infectious Diseases, 29
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Kinetics of Neutralizing Antibodies against Omicron Variant in Vietnamese Healthcare Workers after Primary Immunization with ChAdOx1-S and Booster Immunization with BNT162b2
Chau NVV. et al, (2023), The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 108, 137 - 144
Websites
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Photovoice stories about antibiotic use
A virtual exhibition of photos about healthcare, antibiotics and medicines taken by community members and farmers in northern Vietnam
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The SPEAR Project
Understanding the socio-cultural impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in three countries in Asia
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Antibioship
A shoot 'em up video game for learning about bacteria and antibiotics