Sonia Lewycka

Sonia is an epidemiologist working at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Hanoi. She is interested in the use of population-based studies to evaluate the coverage, equity and impact of public health interventions and programmes. She has previously used community-based interventions to improve maternal and child survival in Malawi, and she is currently leading the development and implementation of health behaviour change interventions to tackle inappropriate antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance at population-level in Vietnam. Target groups include parents, farmers, pharmacists, drug sellers, primary healthcare workers, hospital doctors and the general public. She is exploring the potential of point-of-care diagnostics to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use, through an implementation trial targeting prescribing in primary healthcare settings, and a pilot study targeting over-the-counter sales in community pharmacies. Through another community-based trial, she is evaluating the potential for participatory community engagement to accelerate behaviour change, in addition to more traditional public health campaigns. Alongside this, she is using population datasets to analyse global distributions and determinants of antibiotic use, and building mathematical models to identify intervention points with the largest potential for impact on antibiotic use and resistance.

Sonia is also interested in the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases, and is using population datasets to identify the reasons for low vaccination coverage and missed opportunities for vaccination in low and middle income countries. She has been an advisor to UNICEF/Gavi on developing monitoring frameworks for vaccination coverage and equity. She is developing this vaccine-preventable diseases research further, to investigate the potential impact of vaccinations on reducing antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance.

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 Māori youth health, migrant health and health equity research