Ph D Confirmation Seminar - Shazra Abbas

Factors influencing health outcomes and financial wellbeing of patients with drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB): a mixed methods study in Punjab, Pakistan

Drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) is a major public health problem, especially in low and middle-income countries. Pakistan is one such country with rising prevalence of TB/DR-TB and sub-optimal treatment outcomes of patients with DR-TB. This major public health problem is occurring despite the existence of the National TB Control Program and the availability of free of cost treatment and social support. The aim of this research project is to identify barriers and facilitators in the healthcare system and social environment of patients with DR-TB that influence their health outcomes and social and financial wellbeing.

Shazra is a medical doctor and MPH graduate from the University of Melbourne. As part of the National AIDS Control Program in Pakistan and later UNICEF, she has worked for at-risk populations including people living with HIV and TB, injecting drug users and street children for about eight years. Before commencing her PhD at the Nossal Institute, she was a public health specialist at an infectious disease research institute in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Supervisors:

A/Prof Michelle Kermode, Nossal Institute for Global Health, Prof Peter Annear, Nossal Institute for Global Health,

Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

A/Prof Babar Shaikh, Health Services Academy, Islamabad, Pakistan