Publications of The Year
Each year, we select a set of ten (10) publications that we believe best exhibit high-quality research and impact from among our researchers and fellows.
The selection committee consists of academic members across our organization and our partners. These publications are arranged in no particular order and are meant to highlight work that is exemplary of our brand of research and desired impact. We are extremely proud of types of knowledge we produce at AIGHD as they possess quality methodologies and large potential impact.
This list is not exhaustive and our fellows and researchers have a variety of contributions to global health knowledge. Learn more about our research and publications from AIGHD here: Scientific Publications & PhD Theses - AIGHD.
1
Estimating the potential to prevent locally acquired HIV infections in a UNAIDS Fast-Track City, Amsterdam
Journal: eLife Sciences
Authors: Blenkinsop A, Monod M, van Sighem A, Pantazis N, Bezemer D, Op de Coul E, van de Laar T, Fraser C, Prins M, Reiss P, de Bree GJ, Ratmann O; HIV Transmission Elimination AMsterdam (H-TEAM) collaboration.
Link to paper: https://elifesciences.org/articles/76487
Learn more about H-TEAM: Preventie van hiv-infecties - HTEAM
Summary or background:
More than 300 cities including the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands have joined the UNAIDS Fast-Track Cities initiative, committing to accelerate their HIV response and end the AIDS epidemic in cities by 2030. To support this commitment, we aimed to estimate the number and proportion of Amsterdam HIV infections that originated within the city, from Amsterdam residents. We also aimed to estimate the proportion of recent HIV infections during the 5-year period 2014–2018 in Amsterdam that remained undiagnosed.
2
A digital mobile health platform increasing efficient and transparency towards universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries
Journal: Digital Health
Authors: Liesbeth Huisman, Shannen MC van Duijn , Nuno Silva, Rianne van Doeveren, Jacinta Michuki, Moses Kuria, David Otieno Okeyo, Isaiah Okoth, Nathalie Houben, Tobias F Rinke de Wit and Khama Rogo
Learn more about M-TIBA: Accessible & affordable healthcare through M-TIBA (mtiba.com)
Summary or background:
In low-and middle-income countries, achieving universal health coverage remains challenging due to insufficient, temporary and fragmented funding as well as limited accessibility to quality healthcare. Leveraging a mobile health platform can be a powerful tool to address these problems. This paper demonstrates how analysing data collected from a mobile health platform helps optimize healthcare provider networks, monitor patient flows and assess the quality and equitability of access to care.
3
Accelerating research and development of new vaccines against tuberculosis: a global roadmap
Journal: Lancet Infectious Diseases
Authors: Cobelens F, Suri RK, Helinski M, Makanga M, Weinberg AL, Schaffmeister B, Deege F, Hatherill M
Link to paper: Accelerating research and development of new vaccines against tuberculosis: a global roadmap - PubMed (nih.gov)
Learn more about M-TIBA: Accessible & affordable healthcare through M-TIBA (mtiba.com)
Summary or background:
To eliminate tuberculosis globally, a new, effective, and affordable vaccine is urgently needed, particularly for use in adults and adolescents in low-income and middle-income countries. We have created a roadmap that lists the actions needed to accelerate tuberculosis vaccine research and development using a participatory process. The vaccine pipeline needs more diverse immunological approaches, antigens, and platforms. Clinical development can be accelerated by validated preclinical models, agreed laboratory correlates of protection, efficient trial designs, and validated endpoints. Determining the public health impact of new tuberculosis vaccines requires understanding of a country's demand for a new tuberculosis vaccine, how to integrate vaccine implementation with ongoing tuberculosis prevention efforts, cost, and national and global demand to stimulate vaccine production.
4
The effect of community engagement on healthcare utilization and health insurance enrollment in Ghana: Results from a randomized ezperiment
Journal: Health Economics
Authors: Stephen Kwasi Opoku Duku, Edward Nketiah-Amponsah, Christine J. Fenenga, Wendy Janssens, Menno Pradhan
Summary or background:
Health insurance enrollment in many Sub-Saharan African countries is low, even with highly subsidized premiums and exemptions for vulnerable populations. One possible explanation is low service quality, which results in a low valuation of health insurance. Using a randomized control trial in 64 primary health care facilities in Ghana, this study assesses the impact of a community engagement intervention designed to improve the quality of healthcare and health insurance services on households living nearby the facilities.
5
Unbiased antimicrobial resistance prevalence estimated through population-based surveillance
Journal: Clinical Microbiology and Infection
Authors: van Leth F & Schultsz C.
Link to paper: Unbiased antimicrobial resistance prevalence estimates through population-based surveillance - Clinical Microbiology and Infection
Summary or background:
Current antimicrobial resistance surveillance (AMR) is mainly laboratory based. This approach can have inherent biases given the potential for selective specimen submission for microbiological analysis and for its inability to map antibiotic susceptibility test results to a clinical syndrome.
6
Forest malaria and prospects for anti-malarial chemoprophylaxis among forest goers: Findings from a qualitative study in Thailand
Journal: Malaria Journal
Authors: Monnaphat Jongdeepaisal, Panarasri Khonputsa, Orathai Prasert, Suphitsara Maneenet, Kulchada Pongsoipetch, Anchalee Jatapai, Chawarat Rotejanaprasert, Prayuth Sudathip, Richard J Maude, Christopher Pell
Summary or background:
Across the Greater Mekong Subregion, malaria remains a dangerous infectious disease, particularly for people who visit forested areas where residual transmission continues. Because vector control measures offer incomplete protection to forest goers, chemoprophylaxis has been suggested as a potential supplementary measure for malaria prevention and control. To implement prophylaxis effectively, additional information is needed to understand forest goers’ activities and their willingness to use malaria prevention measures, including prophylaxis, and how it could be delivered in communities. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forest goers and stakeholders, this article examines the potential acceptability and implementation challenges of malaria prophylaxis for forest goers in northeast Thailand.
7
What prevents pregnant women from adhering to the continuum of maternal care? Evidence on interrelated mechanisms from a cohort study in Kenya
Journal: BMJ Open
Authors: Aksünger, N., De Sanctis, T., Waiyaiya, E., van Doeveren, R., van der Graaf, M., & Janssens, W.
Summary or background:
Our objective is to examine the determinants of the continuum of maternal care from an integrated perspective, focusing on how key components of an adequate journey are interrelated. We used a facility-based prospective cohort study for the design, utilizing 25 health facilities across three counties of Kenya: Nairobi, Kisumu and Kakamega.
8
Teacher incentives and attendance: Evidence from Tanzania
Journal: RISE Working Paper Series
Authors: Schipper, Y. & Rodriguez-Segura, D.
Link to paper: Teacher Incentives and Attendance: Evidence from Tanzania | RISE Programme
Summary or background:
We study early grade teacher attendance in a nationally representative sample of public primary schools in Tanzania. We document high and costly levels of absence: during unannounced school visits, only 38 percent of teachers are observed to be actively teaching in the classroom. We find that an experimental incentive program that provided test-based performance rewards improved classroom attendance and teaching among eligible early grade teachers, although it did not explicitly incentivize attendance. Using panel regressions across the full sample, we find that teacher attendance is positively associated with the probability of school inspections and that classroom attendance and teaching activity is substantially higher among female teachers. Traditional incentives such as school infrastructure quality and salary level do not correlate with attendance.
9
EU regulation of artificial intelligence: Challenges for patients' rights
Journal: Common Market Law Review
Authors: Hannah van Kolfschooten
Link to paper: EU regulation of artificial intelligence: Challenges for patients’ rights - Kluwer Law Online
Summary or background:
In order to create a well-functioning internal market for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, the European Commission recently proposed the Artificial Intelligence Act. However, this legislative proposal pays limited attention to the health-specific risks the use of AI poses to patients’ rights. This article outlines that fundamental rights impacts associated with AI such as discrimination, diminished privacy and opaque decision-making are exacerbated in the context of health and may threaten the protection of foundational values and core patients’ rights. However, while the EU is facilitating and promoting the use and availability of AI in the health sector in Europe via the Digital Single Market, it is unclear whether it can provide the concomitant patients’ rights protection. This article theorizes the Europeanization of health AI by exploring legal challenges through a patients’ rights lens in order to determine if the European regulatory approach for AI provides for sufficient protection to patients’ rights.
10
The interplay of regional and ethnic inequalities in Malaysian poverty dynamics
Journal: World Bank
Authors: Rongen, Gerton; Ali Ahmad, Zainab; Lanjouw, Peter; Simler, Kenneth
Link to paper: The Interplay of Regional and Ethnic Inequalities in Malaysian Poverty Dynamics (worldbank.org)
Summary or background:
This study employs a synthetic panel approach based on nationally representative micro-level data to track poverty and income mobility in Malaysia in 2004–16. On aggregate, there were large reductions in chronic poverty and increases in persistent economic security, but those who remained poor in 2016 were increasingly likely to be poor in a structural sense. Further, the poverty and income dynamics differ notably across geographic dimensions. Such disparities are most striking when comparing affluent urban Peninsular Malaysia with poorer rural East Malaysia. Although there are important differences in welfare levels between the main ethnic groups in Malaysia, the mobility trends generally point in the same direction. While the findings show that there is still scope for poverty reduction through the reduction of interethnic inequalities, the study underscores the importance of taking regional inequalities into account to ensure a fairer distribution of socioeconomic opportunities for poor and vulnerable Malaysians. Hence, addressing chronic poverty is likely to require additional attention to less developed geographic areas, as a complement to the current policies that are largely ethnicity-based.