The Institute of Applied Health Sciences

Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso

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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

Social scientist committed to interdisciplinary and intersectoral working, with interests in social, political, and commercial determinants of health inequalities, participatory theory and method, health policy and systems, social policy, knowledge transfer, and health data and surveillance (verbal autopsy, circumstances of mortality, and social audit). International work for over 20 years with universities, research agencies and networks, civil society groups, social enterprises, UN organisations, and in governments. Research supported by research councils and philanthropic organisations applying social science approaches to strengthen public health policy and practice integrating mortality surveillance into health system governance, and applying learning, deliberative and consensus methods. Fouding member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, developing workstreams on the ethical, social, and computational dimensions of mortality data. Co-founder and Deputy Director for the Centre for Global Development at the University of Aberdeen, contributes 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.

Further information at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/achds

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 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
  • 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

Latest Publications

View My Publications

Prizes and Awards

Research

Research Overview

I work with two main methods: routine mortality surveillance accounting for social dimensions of unregistered deaths, and participatory methods to shift power towards those most directly affected to know, understand, act and transform. In 2015, I was awarded a development grant from the MRC, ESRC, DFID and Wellcome Trust as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) to progress these methods in a rural district in South Africa. In 2016, I was awarded a five-year programme grant from the same scheme to lead a team of academics, policy-makers, planners and fieldworkers to scale-up the method in the provincial health system. With funding sustained until 2025, the programme aims to leverage inter-sectoral action by developing critical enquiry processes and partnerships among service users, providers and decision-makers at different levels. 

I am also interested in policy processes, innovation, technology and delivery, and the contexts and mechanisms of participation in health systems. I have recently secured funding from a US philanthropic organisation to examine policy norms and recognition for child and family wellbeing in high, middle and low-income countries, and I contribute to a GCRF initiative in The Gambia developing networks to strengthen emergency obstetric care with rapidly deployable, smart technologies. I also lead research in Scotland examining empowerment approaches to food poverty (including social enterprises, participatory budgeting from the local authority, and legislative shifts including the Community Empowerment Act) as part of an international research network.

My research is enabled through a wide network of collaborations, inlcuding with the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Unit, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, a major research centre established in 1992. I have worked with the MRC/Wits Unit since 2011 and was appointed Honorary staff in 2016. In the same year, I contributed to the INDEPTH Annual General Meeting in Kampala with a paper, presentation and grant-writing workshop entitled “Creating new multi-site, multi-sectoral research collaborations in demographic surveillance” to develop interdisciplinary collaborations connected to health care planning and management. 

 

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 
Publications

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Books and Reports

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Journals

Contributions to Specialist Publications

Working Papers

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