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Researcher
Prof. David Gathara
Principal Investigator
KEMRI | Wellcome Trust
About
David holds a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a PhD from the University of Amsterdam. Since joining KWTRP in August 2008, his research work has spanned a range of disciplines including, clinical trials, evaluation of quality of care within hospitals and exploration of the application of various statistical methods (propensity score analysis, multi-level models and statistical process control) to routine data. David played a key role in development, database design and setting up the Clinical Information Network - a pragmatic research database collecting patient level data from all paediatric admissions from 14 county referral hospitals and aims at improving use of information in policy and practice. He has broad interests’ in the use of epidemiology to monitor disease trends, interventions effects, identify quality of care gaps and the use of this data for effective decision making although with a bias on how human resources for health more specifically the nursing workforce influences the quality of care provided. His future work aims at developing human resource interventions as well as optimising approaches for nursing care provision.
See moreCurrent Work
David is a health systems researcher currently leading work on nursing services research aimed at developing indicators, tools and approches for evaluating the quality of nursing care delivered in hospitals. He also co-leads the Health Services that Deliver for Newborns programme of work whose focus is understanding the burden, need and access of newborn care services as well as evaluating the quality of newborn care services.
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2026
Co-design of the Implementation Toolkit for Small and Sick Newborn Care: a global open-access knowledge management web platform and linked community targeting the know-do gap
Allison, L. E. Sipalo, M. Whatley, et al.
BMC Pediatr. 2026; 26
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2026
To adopt or adapt an existing COS for neonatal research: qualitative study
Karumbi, J. Gathara, D. Williamson, et al.
Trials. 2026; 27
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2026
Cost of health systems strengthening for small and sick newborn care in four sub-Saharan African countries implemented with NEST360: incremental cost analyses
Tarus, A. Kumar, M. B. Penzias, et al.
Lancet Glob Health. 2026; 14:103928
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2024
Engaging stakeholders in embedded newborn health services/systems research in Kenya; a continuous process involving multiple actors
Karumba, K. Oluoch, D. Mutua, et al.
NIHR Open Res. 2024; 4:73
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2025
Small and sick newborn care: Changes in service readiness scoring between baseline and 2023 for 65 neonatal units implementing with NEST360 in Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania
Penzias, R. E. Ogero, M. O. Tillya, et al.
PLOS Glob Public Health. 2025; 5:e0004367