Biography
I am a Senior Teaching Associate in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care (DPHPC), supporting the design and delivery of the MPhil in Population Health Sciences that is offered through a partnership between DPHPC, and the MRC Epidemiology and Biostatistics Departments. My emphasis within the MPhil is on the Global Health, Public Health, and Primary Care themes and I teach various topics in modules on Health Policy, Globalisation and Global Health Governance and Research Skills. I also supervise M.Sc dissertations and I am a member of the Cambridge Science and Policy network (CSaP). I am also an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Health Systems Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and Deputy Programme Director for the MSc in Global Health Policy (by distance learning).
Research
My research has covered various dimensions of health systems and health policy issues related to maternal, childhood and newborn health and, since 2016, to antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic use in community settings in low- and middle-income countries. This work has been funded by several UKRI grants. I am particularly interested in exploring the design of antimicrobial stewardship in mixed health systems in LMICs where diverse actors – public and private, formal and informal-co-produce informalities of practices that cut across service delivery, supply chains, knowledge production and governance of these systems. My OASIS research team won the second prize in the global MIT SOLVE/Trinity Challenge for AMR in community settings in 2024, towards designing an AI based solution for improving antibiotic stewardship in human and animal health and integrating One Health data in rural healthcare settings in India. I am passionate about decolonizing global health by challenging dominant frameworks and addressing epistemic barriers to health policy and health system reforms, and I’ve led policy changes related to mid-level health providers’ development in India.
Publications
Gautham M, Bhattacharyya S, Maity S, et al. "Just as curry is needed to eat rice, antibiotics are needed to cure fever"-a qualitative study of individual, community and health system-level influences on community antibiotic practices in rural West Bengal, India. BMJ open, 14 (2). e076616-. ISSN 2044-6055 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-076616.
Gautham M, Spicer N, Chatterjee S, Goodman C. What are the challenges for antibiotic stewardship at the community level? An analysis of the drivers of antibiotic provision by informal healthcare providers in rural India. Soc Sci Med. 2021 Apr;275:113813. doi: 10.1016/j.
Myers J,… Gautham M, et al. Crossover-Use of Human Antibiotics in Livestock in Agricultural Communities: A Qualitative Cross-Country Comparison between Uganda, Tanzania and India. Antibiotics (Basel). 2022 Sep 30;11(10):1342. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics11101342.
Tomlin K, Berhanu D, Gautham M, et al. Assessing capacity of health facilities to provide routine maternal and newborn care in low-income settings: what proportions are ready to provide good-quality care, and what proportions of women receive it? BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 20 (1). 289-. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-020-02926-8
Gautham M, Bruxvoort K, et al. Investigating the nature of competition facing private healthcare facilities: the case of maternity care in Uttar Pradesh, India, Health Policy and Planning, Volume 34, Issue 6, July 2019, Pages 450–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czz056.
Teaching and Supervisions
I co-lead the Globalisation and Global Health Governance module in the MPhil and teach on the Policy and Public Health and Research Skills modules. I’m an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK). I have a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2006).
