staff profile

Researcher Studies Neonatal Health Outcomes in India

Alyana Ladha, research fellow in the Department of Global Health, manages a suite of maternal and child health-related research projects.

During an undergraduate internship in China, Alyana Ladha’s (SPH’19) eyes were opened to the field of public health.

“We traveled to hospitals all across the Zhejiang Province, from major cities to rural districts, and everywhere we went I saw health inequities all around me,” she says. “Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I really started to understand the social determinants of health and the importance of the environment in which we live on our health and access to care. I didn’t know much about public health at the time, but I knew I wanted to learn more.”

This experience put Ladha on a path to study and work in the global health field. In 2017, she joined the School of Public Health as a Master of Public Health student, studying program management and global health, and after graduating in 2019, she began working as a research fellow in the Department of Global Health.

Much of Ladha’s work centers around maternal and child health, an interest she has had long before her time at SPH. She works closely with Patricia Hibberd, professor and chair of global health, managing a suite of research projects in India. In this role, her work ranges from getting IRB approvals and making sure everything is running smoothly, to collaborating and working with other research project staff in India.

Currently, she is working on a project to gain a better understanding of specialized neonatal care units (SNCUs) to assess the barriers and facilitators to care within these facilities.

SNCUs are similar to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in that they provide care for sick and premature newborns; however, newborns in SNCUs are generally more stable and do not require as close observation as those in NICUs. These units, Ladha says, have been popping up in hospitals across India over the last several years as a means of reducing the neonatal mortality rate across the country.

In addition to this work, Ladha is an active Staff Senate representative at SPH, and chairs a community committee within the Department of Global Health, called the NIFTY Committee.

“The NIFTY Committee does everything from organizing sustainability initiatives within the department and planning department-wide events to making sure that everybody’s birthdays get recognized,” she says. “As we return to work this fall, we are looking forward to getting back to hosting these community events. We really try to make it fun for everyone, and being chair has been a great way to connect with my colleagues in a more informal way.”

Ladha says that what drew her to SPH as a student was the school’s high ranking and position as a groundbreaking research institution, and that these factors, combined with the opportunity to begin working in the global health field as soon as she graduated, continue to drive her work today.

“The work we are doing here at SPH is a really exciting thing to be a part of, and I am doing exactly what I hoped I would be doing with my MPH,” she says. “Nothing could outweigh that for me.”