I am a public health consultant and data scientist with experience in managing projects in both the public health and health research sectors. In the public health sector I contributed to the establishment of the post-apartheid health system in South Africa through the development and implementation of ReHMIS (Regional Health Management Information System) in the early 1990’s, the first computerised public health care facility inventory in the country.
My interest in health research started with my involvement in the Wits/MRC Agincourt Demographic and Health Study in 1992 and his subsequent appointment as project leader of the Africa Centre's demographic surveillance project. I am currently the Chief Information Officer of the Africa Health Research Institute. I am co-lead of the South Africa Population Research Infrastructure Network, a government-funded network of surveillance sites in South Africa with more than 300,000 individuals under surveillance.
At the Africa Centre for Population Health I was responsible for one of the earliest publications showing the decline in population mortality following the introduction of anti-retroviral treatment. I worked with Prof Peter Byass on the evaluation of the InterVA-4 automated verbal autopsy instrument and the curation of a large dataset from 21 INDEPTH sites on cause-specific mortality.
I lead the INDEPTH research data management programme and is the founder of the INDEPTH Data Repository, the first of its kind specializing in longitudinal population data from LMICs.