Nairobi Programme
Prof Mike English
Principal Investigator
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Bio
Mike English is a UK trained paediatrician who has worked in Kenya for over 20 years supported by a series of Wellcome fellowships. His work often takes Child and Newborn Health as a focus but increasingly tackles health services or wider health systems issues. He works as part of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) in collaboration in Kenya with the Ministry of Health and a wide set of national and international collaborators. His work focuses predominantly on improving care in African Hospitals. The work of his team spans: clinical epidemiology (including developing national, evidence-based guidelines for care of severely ill children and newborns, clinical trials and observational studies); implementation research (including cluster randomised trials and mixed methods research), and health systems research (qualitative studies of health worker and managers’ behaviour and rethinking the health workforce).
See moreCurrent Work
He co-leads Health Systems Research in KWTRP and established the Oxford Health Systems Research Collaboration (OHSCAR). Recently Mike helped establish a team focused on delivering simulation based training using gamification through mobile phones and virtual reality (https://oxlifeproject.org/). Mike’s 2013-2018 fellowship initiated the Kenyan Clinical Information Network (CIN). Working with 15 hospitals and focused on generating high quality routine data the CIN is exploring how to improve hospital care at scale while using aggregate data to trial feedback interventions and understand practice variation. Other major current work includes a 4.5 year project on how to improve health care provision for sick newborns, work that spans measuring effective coverage and multiple methodological approaches to inform thinking on the challenges of delivering effective nursing care and possible task-shifting. Mike frequently provides advice to the Kenyan government and WHO on a range of issues related to child and newborn survival and health systems performance and is a member of the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era (https://www.hqsscommission.org/).
Recent publications
Conceptualising hardship areas in Sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review.
Auma, C. M. N., Karing'u, P., Harriss, E., English, M., Oliwa, J., Okiro, E. A.
Int J Equity Health, (2025). 24:326
Understanding the relational culture of healthcare workplaces: a framework to guide improvement interventions, derived from a realist evaluation of neonatal care in Kenya.
Blacklock, C., Wanyama, C., Jepkosgei, J., Hinton, L., McKnight, J., Jepkosgei, J., Oluoch, D., Molyneux, S., Hogan, B., English, M., Wong, G.
BMC Health Serv Res, (2025). 25:1499
Roles of medical, nursing and clinical specialists in selected African health systems: a document review of numbers, norms, training and scope of practices.
Ajayi, S., Zhao, Y., Ibrahim, N., English, M.
Wellcome Open Res, (2025). 10:313
A Pragmatic Trial of Glucocorticoids for Community-Acquired Pneumonia.
Lucinde, R. K., Gathuri, H., Mwaniki, P., Orindi, B., Otieno, E. O., Mwakio, S., Mulemi, L., Isaaka, L., Shangala, J., Saisi, M., Isinde, E., Oginga, I. N., Wachira, A. W., Manuthu, E., Kariuki, H., Asaava, P., Nyikuli, J., Wekesa, C., Otedo, A., Bosire, H., Okoth, S. B., Ongalo, W., Mukabi, D. M., Lusamba, W., Muthui, B., Adembesa, I., Mithi, C., Sood, M., Aliyan, N. A., Gituma, B., Matiko, M. G., Omondi, C. A., Ombajo, L. A., Kirui, N., Ochola, L., Abdi, A. I., Kagucia, E. W., English, M., Hamaluba, M., Ochola-Oyier, I., Kamuya, D., Bejon, P., Barasa, E., Agweyu, A., Akech, S., Etyang, A. O.
N Engl J Med, (2025). :
Emotional dimensions of nurses' daily work in newborn units in Kenya: a qualitative study.
Sen, D., Boga, M., Musitia, P., Oluoch, D., Adeniji, Y., Odinga, N., Waithira, C., Ngaiza, G., Fuller, S., Nzinga, J., English, M., Molyneux, S.
BMC Public Health, (2025). 25:3632