Dr. Sokhna Thiam
Environmental Epidemiologist and Associate Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center
Dr Sokhna Thiam, Environmental Epidemiologist with a background in Health Geography, is an Associate Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), West Africa Regional Office (WARO) in Dakar, Senegal. Leading the Environment, Climate Change and Health research Unit at WARO, her research focus is on examining the impact of global environmental change on health, particularly understanding the impacts of climate change on health, and impact evaluation of health and societal impacts of climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions, with a specific interest in nature-based and land restoration solutions to inform health interventions/actions in Africa. Her broader interests lie in applying Eco health, One health, transdisciplinary, and systems thinking approaches to research evidence generation in order to better understand the interaction between people, place, and the environment in Africa.
Dr Thiam is currently leading projects on the impact of climate change on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) funded by the UK Medical Research Foundation, on maternal and newborn health (MNH) funded by the Wellcome Trust and on the impacts of large-scale landscape restoration on human health funded by the Medical Research Council Global Health Applied in West Africa within the ClimateAction4NCDs, Heat&MNH and the Green Great Well (GGW) projects. And she is currently collaborating on a project related to climate change and health (“Co-creating Climate Services for Care Economy and Caring Society”).
Dr Thiam holds a PhD in Epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland and is an active member of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and ex-Secretary of the ISEE Africa Chapter Executive committee and member of the membership committee for 3 years (2018-2021). She is also a member of the CHANCE Network and the Health Climate Network Community.