Christina Mergenthaler
In my position as a junior adviser within the epidemiology team, I offer my experience in data management, statistical analysis of quantitative data, infectious disease epidemiology and control in developing countries.
Working at KIT provides many opportunities to apply these skills to a variety of infectious disease projects, although I am pleased to continue cultivating technical expertise in research projects focused on the many continuously evolving facets of tuberculosis case finding and control.
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TB Hackathon: Development and Comparison of Five Models to Predict Subnational Tuberculosis Prevalence in Pakistan
Pakistan’s national tuberculosis control programme is among the many programmes worldwide that value the importance of subnational tuberculosis (TB) burden estimates to support disease control efforts, but do not have reliable estimates.TB Hackathon: Development and Comparison of Five Models to Predict Subnational Tuberculosis Prevalence in Pakistan. Against this backdrop, the Pakistan NTP partnered with KIT epidemiologists to launch a virtual hackathon to estimate the subnational TB burden in Pakistan.
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Completeness of TB notification: inventory studies and capture-recapture analyses, six European Union countries, 2014 to 2016
In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Action Framework towards TB elimination in low-incidence countries, and in 2016, the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) published the Roadmap to implement the tuberculosis action plan for the WHO European Region 2016-2020: Towards ending TB and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. They outline blueprints to carry out the WHO’s global End TB Strategy in Europe and to reach the sustainable development goal (SDG) target for tuberculosis (TB). Key strategic targets include reduction of global TB incidence by 80% in 2030 and 90% in 2035, compared with 2015. In the WHO European Region, the targets include a 25% reduction in TB incidence rate by the year 2020 compared with 2016. TB incidence can be derived from TB notification rates, assuming complete case detection and reporting. This is considered a strong assumption unlikely to hold in many settings, including European Union (EU) countries. Several studies across the EU/EEA, e.g. those from France, Spain, Italy and Romania, have revealed high rates of under-reporting.
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Completeness of TB notification: inventory studies and capture-recapture analyses, six European Union countries, 2014 to 2016
Assessing the completeness of TB notification to determine whether national data truly reflects the real TB situation in selected EU Member states.
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The TB REACH Initiative: Supporting TB Elimination Efforts in the Asia-Pacific
After many years of TB ‘control’ and incremental progress, the TB community is talking about ending the disease, yet this will only be possible with a shift in the way we approach the TB response. While the Asia-Pacific region has the highest TB burden worldwide, it also has the opportunity to lead the quest to end TB by embracing the four areas laid out in this series: using data to target hotspots, initiating active case finding, provisioning preventive TB treatment, and employing a biosocial approach. This paper presents several approaches TB REACH is taking to support its partners in the Asia-Pacific and globally to advance our collective response to end TB.
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Lies, damned lies and epidemiology: why global health needs good epidemiological practice guidelines
Epidemiology is the cornerstone of global health. It shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying disease risk factors and preventive healthcare targets.
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A Spatial Analysis Framework to Monitor and Accelerate Progress towards SDG 3 to End TB in Bangladesh
Global efforts to end the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic by 2030 (SDG3.3) through improved TB case detection and treatment have not been effective to significantly reduce the global burden of the TB epidemic.
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Quick Scan: Key Actors in Gender and Mining in the Netherlands and Internationally
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in exploring and working on gender and mining issues in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) as well as in the formal larger-scale mining (LSM) sector. Many international stakeholders have become active in this field, such as the World Bank, and UN Women in particular via its East and Southern Africa Office in Kenya. Also Dutch and international civil society organizations are working on different projects and initiatives of which some are financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
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MATCH: Mapping and Analysis for Tailored Disease Control and Health System Strengthening
This manual is an initiative of the Stop TB partnership, funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and written by the Centre for Applied Spatial Epidemiology (CASE) of KIT Royal Tropical Institute.