Thiago Melo Santos

Thesis title

Basic and safely managed water, sanitation, and hygiene services in low- and middle-income countries: current state and inequalities

Description of PhD Project

The world is not on track the achieve universal access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and there are major regional inequalities. Girls and women have a double burden as the ones more vulnerable to the absence of those services and as those with a larger role in WASH activities. We want to explore three topics: 1) what water sources are more likely to be contaminated and in which context is this more likely to happen; 2) what is the relationship between women’s empowerment and basic WASH services; and 3) what is the simultaneous coverage of WASH services in LMICs and how unequal is that coverage.

Supervisors

• Associate Professor Meghan A. Bohren
• Professor Aluísio J. D. Barros

Biography

Thiago is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology, with research projects at the Center for Health Equity (UniMelb) and at the International Center for Equity in Health (UFPel) in Brazil. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Epidemiology. He has worked promoting access to secondary and higher education in Brazil and Kenya, monitoring health inequality indicators for Gavi and the Countdown 2030, as well as initiatives for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. His areas of research are health equity, global health, vaccination, water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Funding/scholarships

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil
• Wellcome Trust