HDR Midlands Data Grand Round – Tuesday 13th October 2026 @ 12.30 pm [Online via Teams]
Session Chair: Kevin Dunn
The HDR UK Midlands Data Grand Round takes place each month at lunchtime for one hour, and participants discuss a specific research topic at each meeting.
The research topic of interest is presented at each meeting, followed by a Q&A session, which usually leads to an in-depth discussion.
The meetings are online [virtual meetings] and are recorded for any members of our community who are unable to join us, and are then made available to view via the HDR UK Midlands website.
The meetings are chaired by our HDR UK Midlands Directors, who give a short HDR UK Midlands business update at the start of each meeting.
CPD certificates are available upon request.
Presentation:
Using Geostatistics to Map Neglected Tropical Disease Prevalence in Africa
In this talk, I will first give an overview of Geostatistics for Global Health, a Gates-funded project that aims to map the spatial distribution of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in Africa. NTDs are a group of infectious diseases that cause significant morbidity and disability despite being largely preventable and treatable.
One such NTD is schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that can affect the intestinal or urogenital tract. In Africa, the main species responsible are Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium. Schistosomiasis control measures include mass drug administration (MDA) programmes targeting at-risk groups such as school-aged children and people living in endemic regions. However, one of the major challenges of schistosomiasis control is ensuring that treatment reaches those who need it, especially given the limited availability of drugs. Therefore, modelling and mapping the prevalence of schistosomiasis can help to inform the targeted allocation of treatment and assess the impact of control programmes.
I will then present some of the current results on mapping female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) prevalence, a condition that is a consequence of repeated or sustained Schistosoma haematobium infection, causing symptoms such as genital lesions and vaginal bleeding. To model FGS, we used the predictions of schistosomiasis prevalence and linked these predictions to FGS risk through an age-related cumulative exposure index.
Biography
Nirali Soni, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham.
Nirali Soni is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on the application of geostatistical methods to global health research, with an emphasis on infectious and neglected tropical diseases. Her work uses spatial and spatio-temporal modelling to identify disease patterns and inform targeted public health interventions. Nirali holds a PhD in Statistics and Epidemiology from Lancaster University.
We’d love you to join us!
