Understanding complex effects of malaria interventions
Malaria interventions can have complex effects beyond their direct targets, including spillover benefits to non-recipients and indirect effects on non-malarial outcomes. My group has quantified spillover effects of focal malaria interventions in Namibia among non-recipients up to 3km away from interventions. In an ongoing trial in Iquitos Peru, we will investigate spillover effects for focal mass drug administration for Plasmodium vivax. To understand whether intervention effects estimated in one population can inform decisions in others, we developed a causal inference modeling framework and applied it to mass drug administration for malaria in Senegal. These efforts demonstrate how sophisticated causal inference methods can be used to move beyond average treatment effects typically estimated in trials to reveal who benefits, where effects spread, and whether findings from one setting can inform decisions in another.
Extension of efficacy range for targeted malaria-elimination interventions due to spillover effects. Nature Medicine. 2024.
Mapping the local effectiveness of mass drug administration for malaria using transportability methods. Nature Health. 2026.
FocaL mass drug administration for Plasmodium vivax malaria elimination (FLAME): study protocol for an open-label cluster randomized controlled trial in Peru. Trials. 2025.
Funding: NIAID
Malaria chemoprevention in pregnancy
We are investigating pathways through which intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy and childhood influence inflammation, the gut microbiome, infections, and in turn, child growth in early life. These studies use causal mediation analyses to identify the pathways through which different drug regimens influence child growth.
Effect mechanisms of different malaria chemoprevention regimens in pregnancy on infant growth outcomes: causal mediation analysis of a randomized controlled trial. medRxiv. 2026.
Intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy and infant growth: a mediation analysis of a randomised trial. eBioMedicine. 2024.
Funding: NIAID, Stanford Center for Innovation and Global Health
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