PHD Scholars

Prashanth NS began his PhD on district health management in January 2010. He is working on trying to understand the mechanisms through which middle level health services managers (taluka and district level programme managers and health officers) improve their knowledge and/or skills in response to an intervention to improve these. He is using realist evaluation methods to evaluate the intervention; through this, an understanding of the conditions needed for the improvement of planning and supervision of health services at taluka level will emerge. His main supervisors are Bart Criel and Jean Macq, and his co-supervisors are N.Devadasan and Guy Kegels. His practice field work is in Tumkur district.

Upendra Bhojani began his PhD in August 2010. His PhD focuses on studying how the role of local health systems can be strengthened to improve quality of care for people living with chronic diseases. His work especially focuses on the role of primary healthcare providers. His fieldwork is in KG Halli, a poor urban neighbourhood in Bangalore city. His main supervisor is Patrick Kolsteren, and his co-supervisors are Bart Criel and N Devadasan.

Vijayashree HY  began her PhD in December-2012. Her study is focusing on understanding mechanisms to optimise the involvement of  private medical practitioners in Tuberculosis care and control in India. She will be doing an in depth analysis of the existing Public Private Mix(PPMs) schemes of Directly Observed Treatment Short course strategy and understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ certain PPMs work or fail. The proposed study will be done using mixed methods. Her field work is in Tumkur district. Her main supervisor is Patrick Van der Stuyft and co- supervisors are Bart Criel and N Devadasan