I have more than 15 years of professional experience in community and public health in humanitarian crises and developing country-settings, including as a community health worker, medical doctor, and recently as specialised expert and head of metrics, analytics and technology for Valid International. I have expertise in spatial epidemiology, geo-statistics, and statistical programming using R. In my recent role as Head of Measures for Valid International, I led the design, development and implementation of innovative surveys and assessments on health and nutrition and bespoke analytical approaches that leverage the advantages of Bayesian statistics and resampling techniques.
I am a founding member of Katilingban, a collective of public health and nutrition experts and practitioners. I am currently part of the Oxford COVID-19 Modelling Consortium (CoMo Consortium) Philippines team or CoMo-PH along with two other public health practitioners from the Philippines. We aim to test and compare the CoMo Consortium model with existing local models that have previously been developed.
Master of Public Health, 2005
Harvard School of Public Health
Certificate in Humanitarian Studies, 2005
Harvard School of Public Health
Doctor of Medicine, 2001
University of the Philippines
BSc in Basic Medical Sciences, 1998
University of the Philippines
Leads the development and implementation of the strategic direction of the collective
Leads the analytics and software development services unit of the collective
Provides technical guidance and capacity building to the Philippines country team in adapting the CoMo Consortium model to the Philippine context
Develops analytical tools in R language for statistical computing to support the country team’s modelling efforts
Led design, development and implementation of innovative approaches, techniques and products for surveys and assessments focusing on health and nutrition for purposes of programme monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, programme coverage and access or any other metric/indicator estimation.
Led the design and development of bespoke analytical techniques and the accompanying programming scripts and workflows for estimating various metrics/indicators, specifically leveraging Bayesian statistics, resampling approaches and Monte Carlo methods.
Trained and supervised a team of 5 survey technicians and data analysts.
Led Valid International’s Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) coverage assessment team and has conducted coverage surveys in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Nigeria, Niger, India and Ghana.
Pioneered the design and development of specially designed methods to assess CMAM coverage such as Semi-Quantitative Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SQUEAC) and Simplified Lot Quality Assurance Sampling Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SLEAC).
Co-developed a spatial sampling technique called Simple Spatial Sampling Method (S3M) for use in large-scale multi-indicator surveys that reports and maps indicator results at high spatial resolution at a national or regional level.
Co-developed a low-cost, rapid assessment method for assessing nutritional status of children, women and elderly.
Provided technical support and evaluation of nutrition programmes for the treatment of severe and moderate acute malnutrition.
Worked on all areas related to the design and implementation of CMAM programmes, including: identification of barriers to health services; establishment of outpatient clinics in local health centres; case-finding; advice on logistics of community outreach programmes; advice on integration of systems with local, regional and national ministry of health programmes; training programmes for partner NGOs and local ministry of health medical and logistics staff; support and evaluation of programme systems including community outreach, case-finding, programme admission, triage and referral, discharge, case follow up and patient recording systems; establishment of stabilisation centres within hospitals; and evaluation of nutrition programmes at all stages.
This impact evaluation assessed the effectiveness of the World Food Programmes’s (WFP) ongoing food-based prevention of moderate acute malnutrition programme when added to the targeted supplementary feeding as a package intervention.
SLEAC stands for Simplified LQAS Evaluation of Access and Coverage. It is a quick and simple method for assessing coverage in a programme area such as a health district.