0709 203000 - Nairobi 0709 983000 - Kilifi
0709 203000 - NRB 0709 983000 - Kilifi
0709 203000 - NRB | 0709 983000 - Kilifi

Clinical Research

Bio

Charles was born in Kenya, qualified in Cape Town, South Africa, with postgraduate training in Paediatrics in Manchester and London, United Kingdom. As a lecturer at University of Oxford, he returned to Kilifi Kenya in 1989, to help set up an unit to study severe malaria in African children. Thereafter he spent 2 years as a Post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, USA; studying mechanisms of brain damage in central nervous system infections. He completed his training in Paediatric Neurology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, UK. In 1998 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship at University College London, to return to Kilifi, to study CNS infections in children. He has published on a wide variety of subjects concerning sick children in tropical countries. In 2011 he took up a professorship in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford to concentrate of neurological and mental illness disorders in children living in Africa.

See more

Current Work

He conducts research on CNS infections in children; epidemiological studies of epilepsy and neurological impairment; tetanus, jaundice and sepsis in neonates. At present he is conducting studies of Autism and Epilepsy in Africa and working on sickle cell disease in Tanzania.

See more

Recent publications

The relationship between lifetime trauma exposure and psychosis in a multi-country case-control study in Africa.
Stevenson, A., Misra, S., Girma, E., Akena, D., Alemayehu, M., Ametaj, A. A., Gelaye, B., Gichuru, S., Kariuki, S. M., Koenen, K. C., Kwobah, E. K., Kyebuzibwa, J., Mwema, R. M., Newman, C. P., Newton, C. R. J. C., Ongeri, L., Pretorius, A., Sharma, M., Stein, D. J., Stroud, R. E., 2nd, Teferra, S., Zingela, Z., Atwoli, L.
SSM Ment Health, (2025). 7:

Accounting for clustering for self-reported outcomes in the design and analysis of population-based surveys: A case study of estimation of prevalence of epilepsy in Nairobi, Kenya.
Mwanga, D. M., Kipchirchir, I. C., Muhua, G. O., Newton, C. R., Kadengye, D. T.
Front Res Metr Anal, (2025). 10:1583476

Contextualization and adaptation of the child and adolescent mental and behavioural disorders module of the mhGAP-IG in Kilifi and Nairobi counties in Kenya.
Mkubwa, B., Angwenyi, V., Pacione, L., Nzioka, B., John, M., Kibirige, N., Gichuki, J., Newton, C. R., Sijbrandij, M., Abubakar, A.
Glob Ment Health (Camb), (2025). 12:e92

Validity and reliability of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview in Sub-Saharan Africa: a cross-country comparison study.
Korte, K. J., Hook, K., Stroud, R., Ametaj, A., Sharma, M., Mountcastle, H., Alemayehu, B., Amare, B., Alemu, A. A., Birhanu, R., Girma, E., Milkias, B., Yared, M., Jaguga, F., Mmochi, J., Omari, F., Guma, E., Kutessa, H., Kwagala, C., Nakuya, H., Naisanga, M., Akena, D., Atwoli, L., Kariuki, S., Newton, C. R. J. C., Zingela, Z., Stein, D. J., Solomon, T., Koenen, K. C., Gelaye, B.
Psychol Med, (2025). 55:e254

Economic evaluation of caregiver interventions for children with developmental disabilities: A scoping review.
Kairu, A., Dzoro, E., Angwenyi, V., Newton, C., Hanlon, C., Hoekstra, R. A., Abubakar, A., Barasa, E.
PLOS Glob Public Health, (2025). 5:e0003928