Professor Justine Davies

Institute of Applied Health Research
Professor of Global Health

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 3762
Telephone (2): (PA Wade Taylor) +44 (0)121 414 5837
Email: j.davies.6@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @drjackoids

Address: Murray Learning Centre
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Justine’s driver is to do research that informs development of health systems that deliver quality care in lower and middle income countries, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, projects that she works on all have a health system question in mind.

The overall aim of her research is to provide the evidence to inform where health systems need to develop in order to serve the needs of their populations. This involves looking at the health of the population and the health system that serves them from many different angles; from epidemiological, qualitative, systems-readiness, and economic perspectives. Justine also does implementation science research in order to study real-world solutions to identified gaps. The specialty areas that Justine is interested in are in conditions that require surgery to treat and cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors. Both of these specialty areas require a joined-up health system that provides good quality care.

Biography

Justine has previously been a practising physician in the field of cardiovascular diseases and trained as a clinical pharmacologist in the area of cardiovascular disease risk factors. As a clinical pharmacologist she ran early stage clinical trials of medications to reduce cardiovascular risk.

Recognising the necessity to put human health in the context of the planet on which we live, Justine took time out to study for a Zoology degree, after which she honed her interest in Global Health and research excellence whilst working at the Lancet Journals. She worked as an executive editor at The Lancet and latterly as Editor in Chief of The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. She returned to full time academia in the field of Global Health in December 2016 and has worked at Wits University in South Africa and KCL since then.

Experience at The Lancet Journals has developed a keen sense of what is an impactful research question and how to answer this with methodological rigour.

Justine also has a love of writing and communicating science to non-scientists. She has thus done work as a freelance journalist and worked at the BBC.

Postgraduate supervision

Currently supervising 3 PhD projects at KCL:

Global surgery
Paediatric surgery
Access to care for trauma

Research

Ongoing projects are in Sierra Leone and Ethiopia:

Implementation science to Improve Quality Surgery Care in a tertiary referral hospital (NIHR funded)

Sierra Leone:

Burden of, barriers to access to care for, and consequences of Cardiovascular Diseases Risk Factor in Sierra Leone (Wellcome Trust funded)

Malawi:

Burden of peripheral vascular disease amongst high risk people living in Malawi (MRC/KCL funded)

Burkina Faso:

Burden of and consequences of multimorbidity in a population in Nouna (Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation funded)

South Africa, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya

Burden and consequences of cardiovascular disease risk factors across four African Countries (part of the AWIGEN collaboration)

Other activities

Independent expert advisor to WHO on Global Surgery
Consultant on NCDs with MSF

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Witham, MD, Davies, J, Bärnighausen, T, Bountogo, M, Manne-Goehler, J, Payne, CF, Ouermi, L, Sie, A, Siedner, MJ & Harling, G 2019, 'Frailty and physical performance in the context of extreme poverty: a population-based study of older adults in rural Burkina Faso', Wellcome Open Research. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15455.1

Global PaedSurg Research Collaboration & Davies, J 2019, 'Management and outcomes of gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low, middle and high income countries: protocol for a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study', BMJ open, vol. 9, no. 8, pp. e030452. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030452

Bischops, AC, Manne-Goehler, J, Jaacks, LM, Awasthi, A, Theilmann, M, Davies, J, Atun, R, Bärnighausen, T, Vollmer, S & Geldsetzer, P 2019, 'The prevalence of concurrently raised blood glucose and blood pressure in India: a cross-sectional study of 2,035,662 adults', Journal of Hypertension, vol. 37, no. 9, pp. 1822–1831. https://doi.org/10.1097/HJH.0000000000002114

Oni, T, Mogo, E, Ahmed, A & Davies, JI 2019, 'Breaking down the silos of Universal Health Coverage: towards systems for the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases in Africa', BMJ Global Health, vol. 4, no. 4, e001717. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001717

Whitaker , J, Denning, M, O’Donohoe, N, Poenaru, D, Guadagno, E, Leather , A & Davies, J 2019, 'Assessing trauma care health systems in low- and middle-income countries, a protocol for a systematic literature review and narrative synthesis', Systematic Reviews, vol. 8, 157. https://doi.org/0.1186/s13643-019-1075-8

Edem , I, Dare, A, Byass, P, D’Ambruoso , L, Kahn, K, Leather , A, Tollman, SM, Whitaker , J & Davies, J 2019, 'External injuries, trauma and avoidable deaths in Agincourt, South Africa: a retrospective observational and qualitative study', BMJ open, vol. 9, no. 6, e027576. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027576

NIHR Global Health Research Uniton Global Surgery, Nepogodiev, D, Davies, J, Glasbey, J, Lilford, R, Morton, D & Bhangu, A 2019, 'Quality and outcomes in global cancer surgery: protocol for a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study (GlobalSurg 3)', BMJ open, vol. 9, no. 5, e026646. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026646

Prenissl, J, Jaacks, LM, Mohan, V, Manne-Goehler, J, Davies, J, Awasthi, A, Bischops, AC, Atun, R, Bärnighausen, T, Vollmer, S & Geldsetzer, P 2019, 'Variation in health system performance for managing diabetes among states in India: a cross-sectional study of individuals aged 15 to 49 years', BMC medicine, vol. 17, 92 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1325-6

Prenissl, J, Manne-Goehler, J, Jaacks, LM, Dorairaj, P, Awasthi, A, Bischops, AC, Atun, R, Bärnighausen, T, Davies, J, Vollmer, S & Geldsetzer, P 2019, 'Hypertension screening, awareness, treatment, and control in India: a nationally representative cross-sectional study among individuals aged 15 to 49 years', PLoS Medicine, vol. 16, no. 5, e1002801. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002801

Geldsetzer, P, Manne-Goehler, J, Marcus , M-E, Ebert, C, Zhumadilov, Z, Wesseh, CS, Tsabedze, L, Supiyev , A, Sturua, L, Silver, BK, Sibai , AM, Quesnel-Crooks, S, Norov, B, Mwangi, JK, Mwalim, O, McClure, RW, Mayige, MT, Martins, JS, Lunet, N, Labadarios, D, Karki, KB, Kagaruki, GB, Jorgensen , JMA, Hwalla , NC, Houinato, D, Houehanou, C, Msaidie, M, Guwatudde, D, Singh Gurung, M, Gathecha, G, Dorobantu, M, Damasceno , A, Bovet, P, Bicaba, BW, Aryal, KK, Andall-Brereton, G, Agoudavi, K, Stokes, A, Davies, J, Bärnighausen, T, Atun, R, Vollmer, S & Jaacks, LM 2019, 'The state of hypertension care in 44 low- and middle-income countries: a cross-sectional study of individual-level nationally representative data from 1.1 million adults', The Lancet.

Manne-Goehler, J, Geldsetzer, P, Agoudavi, K, Andall-Brereton, G, Aryal, KK, Bicaba, BW, Bovet, P, Brian, G, Dorobantu, M, Gathecha, G, Singh Gurung, M, Guwatudde, D, Msaidie, M, Houehanou, C, Houinato, D, Jorgensen, JMA, Kagaruki, GB, Karki, KB, Labadarios, D, Martins, JS, Mayige, MT, McClure, RW, Mwalim, O, Mwangi, JK, Norov, B, Quesnel-Crooks, S, Silver, BK, Sturua, L, Tsabedze, L, Wesseh, CS, Stokes, A, Marcus, M, Ebert, C, Davies, JI, Vollmer, S, Atun, R, Bärnighausen, TW & Jaacks, LM 2019, 'Health system performance for people with diabetes in 28 low- and middle-income countries: a cross-sectional study of nationally representative surveys', PLoS Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, e1002751. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002751

Manne-Goehler, J, Siedner, MJ, Montana, L, Harling, G, Geldsetzer, P, Rohr, J, Gómez-Olivé, FX, Goehler, A, Wade, A, Gaziano, T, Kahn, K, Davies, JI, Tollman, S & Bärnighausen, TW 2019, 'Hypertension and diabetes control along the HIV care cascade in rural South Africa', Journal of the International AIDS Society, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. e25213. https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.25213

Harling, G, Payne, C, Davies, J, Gomez-Olive, FX, Kahn, K, Manderson, L, Mateen, FJ, Tollman, SM & Witham, MD 2019, 'Impairment in activities of daily living, care receipt, and unmet needs in a middle-aged and older rural South African population: Findings from the HAALSI study', Journal of Aging and Health. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264318821220

Holmer, H, Bekele, A, Hagander, L, Harrison, EM, Kamali, P, Ng-kamstra, JS, Khan, MA, Knowlton, L, Leather, AJM, Marks, IH, Meara, JG, Shrime, MG, Smith, M, Søreide, K, Weiser, TG & Davies, J 2018, 'Evaluating the collection, comparability and findings of six global surgery indicators: Collection, comparability and findings of six global surgery indicators', British Journal of Surgery. https://doi.org/10.1002/bjs.11061

Basu, S, Davies, J, Wagner, R, Sewpaul, R & Reddy, P 2018, 'Implications of scaling-up cardiovascular disease treatment in South Africa: a microsimulation and cost-effectiveness analysis', Lancet Global Health.

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