Dr Victor Alegana
Contact information
Podcast interview
Health statistics help us quantify the burden of disease in a population, and the impact of interventions. In sub-Saharan Africa, only half of febrile malaria cases are treated in the formal health sector; what is happening in the private sector or informally is not well understood. With improved diagnostics and treatments, testing and treating has become better, but tracking involves more routine systems to improve surveillance.
Research groups
Victor Alegana
Early Career Research Fellow
Population health
Dr Victor Alegana is an Early Career Research Fellow at the KEMRI- Wellcome Trust Research Programme. He has a PhD in Geography and Masters degree in applied Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing both from the University of Southampton, UK. He has a keen interest in use of routine health data and application of spatial-statistical data science to public health problems in low- and middle-income countries. This include broad areas of population health particularly on spatial epidemiology (disease burden estimation), health care access, delivery of health interventions, and monitoring Sustainable Development Goals related to vulnerable populations.
Broad research areas
- In using applied data science to investigate public health problems related to infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries. Victor is currently investigating ways of improving the use of routine data for estimating disease burden in East Africa.
- Delivery of healthcare in low-resource settings including access, health systems and health interventions.
Recent and current projects
- Mapping for malaria elimination: Advances in mapping malaria for elimination: fine resolution modelling of Plasmodium falciparum incidence.
- Equity delivery: Distribution and delivery of healthcare in low-and middle income countries
- Healthcare utilisation for fever treatment: Using Bayesian IRT models to estimate treatment burden in low-resource settings.
- SDG indicators and nationally representative survey data: Investigation precision in public health data-science.
Key publications
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National and sub-national variation in patterns of febrile case management in sub-Saharan Africa
Alegana VA. et al, (2018), Nature Communications, 9
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Advances in mapping malaria for elimination: fine resolution modelling of Plasmodium falciparum incidence.
Alegana VA. et al, (2016), Scientific reports, 6
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Fine resolution mapping of population age-structures for health and development applications
Alegana VA. et al, (2015), Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 12, 20150073 - 20150073
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Estimation of malaria incidence in northern Namibia in 2009 using Bayesian conditional-autoregressive spatial–temporal models
Alegana VA. et al, (2013), Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 7, 25 - 36
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Spatial modelling of healthcare utilisation for treatment of fever in Namibia
Alegana VA. et al, (2012), International Journal of Health Geographics, 11, 6 - 6
Recent publications
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Malaria micro-stratification using routine surveillance data in Western Kenya
Alegana VA. et al, (2021), Malaria Journal, 20
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Estimating hospital catchments from in-patient admission records: a spatial statistical approach applied to malaria
Alegana VA. et al, (2020), Scientific Reports, 10
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Routine data for malaria morbidity estimation in Africa: challenges and prospects
Alegana VA. et al, (2020), BMC Medicine, 18
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Measuring the availability and geographical accessibility of maternal health services across sub-Saharan Africa.
Wigley AS. et al, (2020), BMC medicine, 18
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Spatial inequalities in skilled attendance at birth in Ghana: a multilevel analysis integrating health facility databases with household survey data.
Dotse-Gborgbortsi W. et al, (2020), Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH, 25, 1044 - 1054