KEMRI - Wellcome Trust Research Program, Nairobi
Mike English worked in Kilifi from 1992-1996 on malaria before spending three years in the UK to complete specialist training as a General Paediatrician (1998) and developing a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship (started 1998). He returned to Kilifi in 1999 to work on neonatal illness and care while working as the paediatrician in Kilifi District Hospital. In 2004 he moved to Nairobi and continues to work with the KEMRI – WTRP as a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, building up a Kenyan group working initially on Child and Newborn Health in collaboration with Kenya's Ministry of Health and the University of Nairobi.
The work he is involved with has expanded in scope as the Kenyan team and collaborations have grown to include: developing national, evidence-based guidelines for care of severely ill children and newborns clinical and epidemiological studies, individual and cluster randomised trials, cost-effectiveness analyses, discrete choice experiments, empiric qualitative studies of human behaviour and research ethics and mixed-methods approaches in health systems research. In 2011 the Health Services Group entered into a formal partnership with the Ministry of Health and the University of Nairobi to form the Health Services, Implementation Research and Clinical Excellence (SIRCLE) Collaboration. Most recently he has led efforts to develop multidisciplinary links with Oxford through the Oxford Health Systems Research Collaboration (OHSCAR). As a result he provides advice to the Kenyan government and works with WHO on a range of issues related to child and newborn survival and health systems performance.