Birmingham biostatisticians to map neglected tropical diseases in Africa

Birmingham biostatisticians receive funding from Gates Foundation to help understand infectious disease whereabouts in Africa, enabling resources to be deployed more strategically.

Newly appointed 125th Anniversary Chair Professor Emanuele Giorgi and Dr Claudio Fronterre, Senior Research Associate, have jointly been awarded £1.8 million to establish a major new research programme at Birmingham. The team will be joined by Professor Peter Diggle, who has been appointed as Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham. Professor Diggle is a former President of the Royal Statistical Society and recipient of both the Society's Gold and Silver Guy medals and is widely recognised as a founding figure in modern spatial and spatio-temporal statistics.

Over the coming years, this programme aims to establish Birmingham as the world-leading centre for geostatistical methods in population health sciences, applying cutting edge modelling approaches to major public health challenges in low- and middle-income countries, with a particular focus on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). NTDs are a group of infectious diseases that are most prevalent among the world's poorest communities and cause substantial illness, disability and stigma.

The project will apply advanced geostatistical methodology to generate robust, evidence-based insights to inform public health policy around the control and elimination of NTD’s. For example, schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection transmitted through freshwater snails and is widespread across many African regions. For this and other NTDs the World Health Organization recommends mass drug administration targeted at high-risk groups. By improving how these high-risk areas and populations are identified, the research will support partners in directing limited resources to the communities most in need.

A central component of the research is capacity strengthening across partner institutions in Africa. Giorgi and Fronterre will work closely with Ministries of Health and regional technical teams to embed geostatistical approaches within national health surveillance systems and ensure that these methods can be maintained and further developed locally.

Professor Emanuele Giorgi, Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Birmingham said: "This programme represents a long-term investment in building a scientific home for geostatistics in global health. Our ambition is to place Birmingham at the forefront of methodological innovation and to ensure that evidence generated through rigorous statistical science directly improves health outcomes in the countries we work with."

Dr Claudio Fronterre, Senior Research Associate at the University of Birmingham said: “Building on long-standing collaborations with global and national partners, this work focuses on strengthening how data and statistical models inform public health action. A central aim is to ensure that the methods we develop can be embedded sustainably within health systems, supporting countries to make better-informed decisions for the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases."

Professor Peter Diggle, Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham said: "Developing and applying geostatistical methods in global health settings has been the most rewarding part of my career. I very much look forward to continuing this work with my Birmingham colleagues". 

The project will also provide a major opportunity to develop and consolidate collaborative links with the NTD Modelling Consortium in Oxford and the Task Force for Global Health in Atlanta, creating a coordinated partnership that aligns geostatistical innovation, mathematical modelling and programme implementation to support national NTD programmes across Africa.

Professor Giorgi joined the University of Birmingham in October as part of the 125th Anniversary Fellows and Chairs scheme. His post, the Dr Nigel Evans 125th Anniversary Chair in AI & Data Science, has been generously supported through philanthropic funding, which is enabling him to build a new Statistics for Population Health research group in Birmingham and to contribute to the programme on geostatistical methods for neglected tropical diseases, funded by the Gates Foundation.

Professor Giorgi has also recently been awarded an additional grant from Evidence Action, a global non-profit organisation that supports cost-effective, evidence-based health programmes in low-income countries. The grant will advance the geostatistical design of surveys for the control and elimination of soil transmitted helminths, an NTD that affects millions of children worldwide. This award further strengthens Birmingham's growing role as a leading international centre for geostatistics in global health.