The Institute of Applied Health Sciences

Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso

In this section
Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso
Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso
Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso

BSc (Hons); MSc; PhD; FHEA

Senior Lecturer

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
lucia.dambruoso@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 437127
Office Address

Aberdeen Centre for Health Dta Science (ACHDS) Room 1:172, Polwarth Building, Foresterhill Health Campus, Institute of Applied Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, UK

School/Department
School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition
Twitter
ResearchGate
Google Scholar
Personal Website

Biography

I am a social scientist and health policy and systems researcher with interests in social, political and commercial determinants of health inequalities, participatory theory and method, and knowledge transfer between communities, health systems and policy. My work integrates critical realist theory with participatory action research and political economy analysis, and spans global health in sub-Saharan Africa and health inequalities in Scotland.

Following a decade working on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation maternal mortality reduction programme at the University of Aberdeen (2000–10) and a postdoctoral fellowship at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at Umeå University (2011–13), I returned to Aberdeen in 2013 and have built a sustained portfolio of independent research in global health and global challenges, securing over £1m in competitive awards as Principal Investigator with co-investigator roles on a further three NIHR-funded programmes totalling approximately £9m (2022–27).

I am a founding member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, contributing to workstreams on ethical, social and computational dimensions of mortality data. I am Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Development at the University of Aberdeen, and contribute to postgraduate curriculum design, supervision and global health policy advisory roles.

Expressions of interest from those wishing to undertake PhD research in related areas are welcome.

Qualifications

  • BSc (Hons) Pharamcology 
    1997 - University of Aberdeen 
  • MSc Public Health and Health Services Research 
    2003 - University of Aberdeen 
  • PhD Public Health 
    2011 - University of Aberdeen 
  • FHEA Higher Education 
    2017 - Higher Education Academy 
  • FRSPH Public Health 
    2020 - Royal Society for Public Health 

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships
  • Deputy Director and member Executive Committee, Centre for Global Development
  • Member Senior Management Team, Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science
  • Steering Group Member Delivery of Care Research Group. Institute of Applied Health Sciences
  • Member Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team, Institute of Applied Health Science
External Memberships

External Recognition

  • 2025-date: Funding Panel Member National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UK- Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST)
  • 2025-date: Jury Advisory Board Member Elsevier Foundation and The Lancet Global Health Evidence to Impact Lancet-Elsevier Foundation Award
  • 2025:  Fellow Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study (STIAS) https://stias.ac.za/fellows/projects/bringing-unique-data-to-wicked-problems-developing-health-system-models-for-equitable-access-to-healthcare-in-sub-saharan-africa/
  • 2024-date:  Tenured Funding Panel Member National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHTS) Funding Committee (Call 8)
  • 2024-date: Member UK Prevention Research Network (PRN) https://ukprp.org/prevention-research-network/ 
  • 2024-date: Member Community Engagement Working Group Cape Town Systematic Healthcare Action Research Project (C-SHARP) urban health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) node part of the South African Population Research Infrastructure Network (SAPRIN)
  • 2024 - date: Member, Grampian Engagement Network, NHS Grampian
  • 2024 - date: Steering Group Member, Research & Evaluating Lived Experience Community of Practice: Steering Group, NHS Grampian
  • 2022 - date: Staff member WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 2022-24: Member National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHTS) Funding Committee (Calls 5 and 6)
  • 2021-22: Sub-committee member Health and Wellbeing Forum for Global Challenges, University of Birmingham 2021
  • 2020-date: Senior Reviewer Pre-Publication Support Service (PREPSS) https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/prepss/about-prepss/our-team/peer-reviewers?authuser=0
  • 2017-date: Member Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Improving Scotland’s Health: 2021 and Beyond
  • 2015-date  Trustee Naretu Girls and Women Empowerment Programme, Kenya
  • 2014-19  Member Steering Committee Politics of Health Group (POHG)
  • 2011-17  Editorial Board BMC International Health and Human Rights
  • 2010-date  Editorial Board Global Health Action

Professional Memberships

  • 2021  FRSPH Fellow Royal Society for Public Health
  • 2017  FHEA Fellow Higher Education Academy

Visiting Academic Appointments

  • Extraordinary Senior Lecturer, Centre for Global Surgery, Stellenbosch University, SOUTH AFRICA
  • Honorary Analyst, Public Health/Health Protection, National Health Service (NHS) Grampian, SCOTLAND, UK
  • Honorary Senior Researcher, MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Unit, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg SOUTH AFRICA
  • Global Affiliate, Epidemiology and Global Health, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine Umeå University, SWEDEN

Prizes and Awards

Research

Research Overview

My work draws on two primary methodological traditions. The first is verbal autopsy, a method for routine mortality surveillance that reconstructs the medical and social dimensions of unregistered deaths, and the ethics of investigating deaths in under-resourced settings. The second is participatory action research, applied to shift power towards those most directly affected by health inequalities: to know, understand, act and transform conditions shaping health. Both commitments are grounded in social justice and inform my broader interests in health policy and systems, political economy, and critical interpretive approaches to health inequalities.

My primary programme of international research is VAPAR (Verbal Autopsy and Participatory Action Research), a cooperative learning methodology developed over a decade across sites in South Africa in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand, Mpumalanga Department of Health and partners (2015–25; www.vapar.org). This work is adapted and extended in the COLCOS programme (Cost-of-Living, Cost-of-Smoking), a demonstration study of cooperative action learning applied to smoking in deprived communities in rural northeast Scotland (2023–25; www.cost-of-smoking.org).

I hold substantive co-investigator roles on three NIHR-funded programmes totalling approximately £9m (2022–27): the Global Health Research Group on Promoting Children's and Adolescent's Mental Wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa; the Global Health Research Group on Equitable Access to Quality Health Care for Injured People (Equi-Injury); and Rwanda912, developing an electronic communications platform to improve pre-hospital transport for injured people in Rwanda.

 

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in Applied Health Sciences.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Applied Health Sciences

  • Supervising
  • Accepting PhDs
View Research Area

Funding and Grants

Active

 

Davies J (PI), Chu K (PI), D’Ambruoso L (collaborator) RURAL_SURG: Developing community strategies to strengthen access to surgical care in rural Africa (NSGR1S2\1032)

Academy of Medical Sciences

2025-27

197,284 GBP

P Abbott (PI), Binagwaho A (PI), L D’Ambruoso (CI) et al. NIHR Global Health Research Group on Promoting Children’s and Adolescent’s Mental Wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa

NIHR Global Health Research Group

2022-26

2,717,954 GBP

Davies J (PI), Chu K (PI), D’Ambruoso L (CI) et al. NIHR Global Health Research Group on Equitable Access to Quality Health Care for Injured People in Four Low- or Middle-Income Countries: Equi-injury

NIHR Global Health Research Units and Groups Programme

2022-26

2,955,703 GBP

Davies J (PI) D’Ambruoso L (CI) et al. Rwanda912: Use of an electronic communications platform to improve pre-hospital transport of injured people

NIHR Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHTS)

2022-27

3,199,931 GBP

 

Complete

 

D’Ambruoso L (PI), Hove J (CI). Building bridges: institutionalising practical solutions for community participation in rural South Africa through primary health care policy and practice engagement Changing Policy and Practice

Medical Research Foundation

2024-25

29,690 GBP

D'Ambruoso (PI), Duffy S (CI), Watson K (CI), Littlejohn C (CI). Cost of living/cost of smoking: participatory action research on smoking in deprived communities in the cost-of-living crisis

Cancer Research UK (CRUK)/ASH Scotland

2022-24

72,485 GBP

D'Ambruoso L (PI), Byass P (CI), Witter S (CI), Kahn K (CI), Tollman S (CI), R Twine (CI), B Spies (CI), M van der Merwe (CI). Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR): expanding the knowledge base through partnerships for action on health equity

MRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust, DFID. Joint Health Systems Research Initiative

2017-23

705,647 GBP

D’Ambruoso L, Witter S. Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR): expanding the knowledge base through partnerships for action on health equity (COVID-19 Response)

Scottish Funding Council GCRF Covid-19 Response

2021

42,048 GBP

D’Ambruoso L, Witter S, Twine R, Kahn K, Tollman S. Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR): expanding the knowledge base through partnerships for action on health equity (COVID-19 Response)

UKRI Covid-19 Extension Allocation Fund

2020-21

22,955 GBP

Anderson l, Camanda J, Chocolate FAM, Buco R, D’Ambruoso L, Lohfeld L. Evaluating opportunities and barriers to establishing an autonomous and functional sickle cell anaemia (SCA) unit in Cabinda, Angola

GCRF Institutional Pump Priming Fund (IPPF) (internal award)

2020

55,570 GBP

Loewenson R (PI), D'Ambruoso L (CI). Fostering policy support for child and family wellbeing - Learning from international experience

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

2018-20

289,600 USD

D'Ambruoso L (PI), Byass P (CI), Hurtig AK (CI), Kahn K (CI), Tollman S (CI). Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR): Developing a people-centred health systems research methodology. Development Grant

MRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust, DFID. Joint Health Systems Research Initiative

2015-16

99,604 GBP

Hussein J (PI), Newlands D (CI), D’Ambruoso L (CI). Review of maternal and newborn health policies in five South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan). Policy Review

UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia

2007-08

300,000 USD

 

Teaching

Courses

Teaching Responsibilities

Course coordinator:

  • BU5594: Health Policy and Systems Research

I also teach on:

  • PU5033: Introduction to Global Health
  • PU5505: Global Health
  • PU5521: Work-Based Placements with Health and Development Sector Organisations
  • PU5906: Global Health Research Project
  • PU5027: Fundamentals of Research Design (Online course)
  • ME33GH: Global Health and Humanities (Year 3 MBChB Medical Humanities SSC Option)
  • SX1012: Sustainable International Development (6th Century Course)
  • Africa: Sustainable Development for All? (Massive online open access course, MOOC) https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/africa-sustainable-development 
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