Overview
I am a generalist Global Public Health Researcher and Research Consultant with specialist knowledge and practical experience in psychosocial and environmental health, the behavioural, social and cultural aspects of infectious disease prevention, and Health Impact Assessments (HIAs). I also have a background in communications and media as a former BBC World Service (global), Radio 4 and Radio 3 (UK domestic radio) Radio Reporter and NGO press officer/advisor which enables me to advise on communicating health issues to the public.
I have fifteen years of consulting experience on applied public health research projects, Health Impact Assessments (HIAs), and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for global public health interventions. I produced my first health-related Behaviour Change Communications Strategy for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in North Macedonia.
I hold a Masters of Public Health with High Distinction (1st) from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) in addition to a PhD in Social Science from the University of Oxford (UK) and completed a Postdoc at the World Resources Institute/WRI (Washington DC, USA) on social and behavioural science approaches to community climate resilience in urban development and planning. I am a candidate for a Masters in Psychology (University of Glasgow) to supplement the social psychology training I obtained through my PhD (Oxford). I hold Certificates from UN Migration (International Organization for Migration – IOM) in Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies and Displacement (2026), and Psychosocial Health of Migrants (2026) issued by IOM Training.
Specialisms
Health Systems Strengthening
To strengthen health systems means analysing and identifying areas of weakness in the multi-level structures, and flow and accessibility of resources within the primary, secondary and tertiary health systems, organisations and institutions, and relevant organisational, administrative, staffing and clinical practices across a given national public and/or private health infrastructure. Evidence-based decisions must be made to improve weaknesses. This occurs through the systematic prioritisation of areas of weak financing, organisation, facilities, bureaucratic, surveillance and medical activities and clinical practices in the fields of health prevention, protection, diagnostics, treatments, delivery of healthcare, and health promotion. Health systems strengthening means that processes of improvement and upgrading are implemented at national, regional and community level, and involve educating and training and re-training health system and healthcare professionals, and the public. Where there are deficits lacking solutions, and evidence-gaps, opportunities for continuous improvement and upgrading through innovation must be sought and implemented, and existing strengths boosted and enhanced.
I have contributed to health systems strengthening programmes operating in Somalia, Russia, across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Central Asia and other Post-Soviet countries, and across many African countries.
I was a proposal evaluator on FCDO‘s (ex-DfID) Somali Health and Nutrition Programme (SHINE) scoring proposals from NGOs to provide healthcare and nutrition services in four regions of Somalia and Somaliland. I proposed criteria for DfID to negotiate with the winning bidders and also provided input into the Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) Strategy. Due to safety factors, this work was done from Nairobi and Lake Naivasha, Kenya, with civil servants and public health specialists from the Somali and Somaliland Ministries of Health. I was one of four international team members recruited for balance and objectivity along with colleagues from Palestine, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Pakistan and India. It took the form of a 2-week teamwork process to evaluate all the proposals and confer together.
I have reviewed and designed monitoring and evaluation frameworks , such as one for the health science study, Tacking Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA). I conducted a desk-top Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for FCDO‘s health systems strengthening programmesand Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme (TDDAP) (see Monitoring and Evaluation (MEL) below).
I have researched and analysed weak health systems. I led a data-collection team of clinicians in Moscow, and researched and wrote a set of MEDCO country of origin reports, for the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) on health and healthcare across the Russian Federation. I also wrote 10 topical reports on different disease and patients groups in the former Soviet country. These were: psychiatry, endocrinology, pulmonology, nephrology, neurology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, disabled patients, paediatrics, and geriatric patients. These reports are official EU documents and provide health background information on all asylum claimants in EU countries and are used by other EU institutions such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
I researched and wrote eight topical reports on the state of cancer care in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan for Glaxo Smith Kleine as a Consultant for International SOS.
Social and Cultural Aspects
of Infectious Diseases
Women’s Role in the Prevention of Dengue Using Environmental Management Methods
My interest in the behavioural and social aspects of infectious disease prevention inspired me to study the ways in which women’s environmental management practices in the global south have contributed to Dengue prevention. They achieved this through eliminating the stagnant water sources that its primary vector carrier, Aedes mosquitoes (the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) who carry and transmit the virus to humans, lay their eggs and breed. These mosquitoes, which are usually found in tropical and subtropical regions, bite infected people and then transmit the virus on to others through subsequent bites. Drawing on my anthropological training, I performed a qualitative meta-synthesis of descriptive and ethnographic studies to analyse the practices that women use, the challenges they face when carrying out this low-cost, highly effective method of disease prevention, and the particular enablers/barriers as linked to their gender. This work was published in the International Journal for Equity in Health in 2022. You can read it for free here.
Covid-19 and Growing Awareness of the Role of
Human Factors in Infectious Disease Prevention
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the social and cultural nature of infectious disease transmission and prevention to light. Whether a disease is spread via contact (direct and/or indirect), droplet, or is airborne, vector-borne or common vehicle-borne (food, medication, intravenous fluid, or equipment that transmits infection to multiple hosts), it is inevitably linked to contact between humans or humans and animals or products and equipment that humans use.
Disease prevention and management requires people to contribute by adopting specific behaviours and/or avoiding others, or workforces be involved in structured mass prevention. Health promotion and prevention initiatives for limiting or eradicating the spread of communicable diseases require human motivation, capability, pro-health attitudes, willingness to follow and comply with prescribed vaccinations and implement prevention measures, participation in health education and promotion, and for some, employment in disease control roles and teams. Perceptions and understanding of infectious diseases transmission and prevention are invariably culturally specific, and sometimes particular socio-cultural norms influence population willingness to do some of the above. Behavioural and social science has a valuable role to play in infectious disease prevention and health promotion.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Infectious Disease
Prevention and Control Programmes
I have been peer-reviewer and evaluation framework author of several monitoring and evaluation efforts on infectious disease research and/or prevention programmes. These include Accelerating Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ASCEND) for FCDO (ex-DfID) in East and West Africa and Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA) (University of Edinburgh). I led a team of three in undertaking a desk-top Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for FCDO’s (ex-DfID) Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme (TDDAP).
I developed a proposal for a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary applied research-driven, community-based, gender equitable dengue prevention initiative for implementation in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. It explored gender equity between women and men in implementing environmental management-based prevention measures at community level, and government policy contributions to supporting ‘gender transformative’ prevention. It comprised three parts: 1) gender equality and social inclusion training for vector control and Ministry of Health staff; 2) a music, drama and dance-based video to support community-level health education/promotion; and 3) a micro entrepreneurship scheme to support female entrepreneurs to run small vector-control businesses.
Psychosocial Research
I was Principal Investigator of a mixed methods study for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in North Macedonia looking at, among other things, public awareness of the health effects of burning biomass, and indoor and outdoor air pollution as well as their relationship to climate change. For this, I designed a psychometric survey questionnaire using indicators that measured health and environmental psychology constructs such as ‘health risk perception’ and ‘climate change-related health risk perception’. The survey was distributed to a sample of 1188 people across North Macedonia from seven marginalised and vulnerable groups. The subsequent data, once analysed using statistical testing, was used to underpin a Behaviour Change Communications Strategy and a successful application to the UN Joint SDG Fund – Component 2 – Call on SDG Financing to fund the Green Finance Facility to Improve Air Quality and Combat Climate Change in North Macedonia.
Psychosocial health is concerned with the psychological effects of social experiences, so the influence of factors outside of ourselves – in the wider society – on our mental health. I conduct research and design assessment processes, and data collection and analysis tools for applied health research [add ref to Samaritans project], health impact assessments (HIAs), and applied health evaluations to collect data on psychosocial health. I have published scientific articles outlining some of these frameworks and tools, see Psychosocial Health for full details.
Behavioural Science Advisory
I am a trained Behavioural and Social Scientist (PhD Social and Cultural Anthropology with Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Oxford). I furthered my knowledge with study modules on public health approaches to mental health and social and behavioural epidemiology during my Masters of Public Health (UNSW, Australia). I am experienced at looking at the psychosocial, behavioural, social and cultural factors that underpin human thought, emotions and behavioural responses to life experiences, relationships, communities, environments, and macro-economic factors. I use a combination of theory-based analyses, and quantitative methods such as psychometric, social and behavioural surveys, and qualitative methods such as participatory and non-participatory observation, interviews, focus groups, document review, visual documentation and analyses, photo elicitation, creative production (song-writing, informal art) and other methods to understand the contexts of human life (e.g. socio-cultural, socio-political, biophysical/ecological, economic, material, religious), and structural forces and influences. My approach can be applied in all cultural, country and city/town/rural contexts, and used to understand the behaviours that contribute to health problems, fail to prevent and control them, and promote good health.
Monitoring and Evaluation (MEL)
As part of my international development consulting, I have contributed to monitoring and evaluation systems for global health programmes in Africa. I designed a framework, theory of change, and Logframe with indicators for a complex research programme,Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa(TIBA), a 9-African country study led from the University of Edinburgh lasting four years and aimed at improving the management of emerging and endemic diseases. The involved countries are: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The M&E Framework can be downloadedhere. As a result, I contributed to an expert workshop atChatham Houseto provide feedback on a global M&E framework for the World Health Organization to monitor national government policies on ‘One Health’ around the world. I also supervised a desk-top Social Impact Assessment (SIA) of DFID’sTackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Program operating in Cameroon, Uganda, Côte D’Ivoire, Niger, Mali, and Chad.
I have peer-reviewed M&E terms of reference and baseline, midline and endline reports for the following FCDO health programmes:
o FCDO Evidence 4 Health Programme, Pakistan
o FCDO Better Lives, Health and Nutrition, Somali Women and Children
o FCDO Health Pooled Fund, South Sudan
o FCDO Lafiya Health Programme, Nigeria
o DfID Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme (Cameroon, Côte D’Ivoire, Niger, Mali, Chad, Uganda)
o DfID ASCEND – neglected tropical disease prevention in 20 countries.
I have also been evaluation peer reviewer of several FCDO programmes aiming to tackle violence against women and girls, namely Violence Against Women and Girls Prevention and Response Programme, Malawai and Increasing Access to Gender Based Violence Response Services in Afghanistan – Phase II. I worked briefly as a Public Health Intelligence Adviser for NHS Health Scotland contributing to evaluations within the Scottish context, including a national vaccine transformation programme, and a behaviour change intervention to wean prisoners off smoking as one strand of the implementation of a smoking ban in Scottish prisons.
Behaviour Change Communications Strategies
As a former BBC World Service (UK global radio), Radio 4 and Radio 3 (UK domestic radio) radio researcher and reporter, and a former NGO media adviser, I enjoy bringing together my skills and expertise in behavioural and social science with my media skills and knowledge to create media and communications campaign strategies. I use theories, models and approaches from bbehavioural science, social, environmental, health and community psychology, social and cultural anthropology and media studies to underpin them and provide a guide for the change process that the strategies hope to influence.
An Example: For UNDP, I designed and wrote a behavioural change communications strategy to inform a public information, engagement and media campaign by banks in North Macedonia to promote uptake of UNDP’s ‘performance-based payments subsidy’ scheme. It comprised of two main components.
The first component was a public engagement plan through the use of ‘change agents’ and ‘community embassadors’ to counsel households through the process of deciding to change their energy use and consumption behaviours to switch from use of biomass to renewable energy and energy efficiency technical solutions for clean energy generation. They would also support these households through making an application for a subsidy to fund the purchase and installation of these technologies. The public engagement component also proposed discursive ’round-table’ events to engage marginalised groups in dialogues with the scheme’s proponents and involved institutions. The second component was a national media and communications campaign using direct communications and targeted marking, new/social media and electronic/digital media (i.e. television shows and advertising) to disseminate key messages and information about the scheme and its target benefits.
The strategy was underpinned by three psychology theories: ‘diffusion of innovation theory’, ‘social practice theory’, and ‘the Integrated Framework for Encouraging Pro-Environmental Behaviour (IFEP)’, a little asset-based community development theory, and a model of home-based, family counselling using storytelling and negotiation of norm changes using a ‘nudge’ approach for behaviour change: ‘timed and targeted counselling/TTC’ (adapted from World Vision’s TTC for maternal and child health and nutrition).
Health Impact Assessment
Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a process for assessing the effects of social and environmental change on our health and well-being in daily life. A full description is available here. I have led the research and community engagement components of several large-scale HIAs of nationally-significant infrastructure projects in the UK, and contributed research and analysis to others. My work covers high speed rail, nuclear power, nuclear waste and a multipurpose stadium. I have also conducted research on HIAs of built environments developments and petrochemical plants. This work covers Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, USA, Japan and Thailand.
Dr Cathy Mungall-Baldwin 