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Dr Rupinder Sahota

Research Assistant

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London
WC1E7HT
United Kingdom

An accomplished professional working in the public health and nutrition sector since last 13 years. Holding a PhD degree in public health management and masters in health management from Indian Institute of Health Management and Research University, Jaipur, India and my bachelors in dental surgery enables me to understand the dynamics of nutrition and health sector especially in low and middle income countries. During my PhD and my work experience, I have used various analytical techniques like parametric and non-parametric tests with in-depth knowledge about generation of a composite score, principal component analysis, testing normality and reliability, hierarchal multiple regression, stepwise regression, and other forms of regression. I also have experience of collecting and analysing qualitative data and I am versed with working in MS excel, SPSS with basic skill in R. Regarding the in-country experience in India, I worked with Ministry of Health both at the national and the state level and have extensive experience in nutrition and health domain. In terms of international exposure, I worked with Nutrition International’s Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) project at the Asia regional office, wherein I was pivotal in designing and implementing projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, and The Philippines. Currently with the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine I work in the MAPS project which is co-creating a web-hosted tool to estimate micronutrient deficiencies and explore pathways to improve nutrition. As part of this project, I was pivotal in the leading the co-design process in India in the form of a qualitative study with extensive stakeholder engagement comprising of stakeholders from public sector, development partners, research academia and donors in Indian food systems.

Affiliations

Department of Population Health
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

Teaching

Lectures:
In LSHTM I have delivered two lectures during th epast one year, one was in Fundamental Public Health Nutrition wherein I delivered and designed content on Vitamin A programs in India and the relevance of each. A case study was devised for the students to have an in-depth understanding.
Apart from this I also have delivered a lecture in Nutrition related chronic diseases wherein the skey focus was to engage students by a deep dive into policy/programmatic support and advocacy experiences from South Asia.
Iam also delivering a lecture on Nutrition program planning on 11 May 2023 for which my preperatory work is going on. The topic is stakeholder analysis and would be based on literature, previous lectures and mainly the practical experience that I had last year.
Assessments:
In the past one year, I have been extensively involved in markings and assessments of MSc Nutrition for Global Health students across modules, around 30 assessments have been completed in Fundamental of Public Health Nutrition, Nutrition in Emergencies, and project markings.
Question Paper setting
I led the formulation of a resit question and model answer on Vitamin A assessment and its linkage to policy making in India based on background information provided in the form of survey.
Tutoring
Mentoring: I have been mentoring a MSC Nutrition for global health tutee, regular touch base meetings have been conducted with her both in-person and online.
Focus was on ensuring that she adapts to the new course and place. Support has been provided to her with summer project ideas with an extensive discussion with zeroing down to a domain and geography for her summer project which involved look at Iodine microntirent in a clinical and programmatic context in Hongkong.
Supported the student in her preperations with a resit exam with in-depth discussions about previous attempt and handholding for preprations by wotking out preperation pathway and sharing of relevant reading and preperatory material.
Co-mentored another MSc student for identification of area for summer project and discussed in detail about policy analysis possibilities in food systems in Africa and Asia.
Guided another Msc student regarding the opportunities for implementation based programmatic professional roles in government and developmental sectors. Career advice with respect to the search criteria, development of CV and the potential organisations across various domains of food systems in varied geographies was imparted.
During the course of my PhD I have taken lectures on national programmes, their coverage, impact and future plans and have delivered lectures to students of IIHMR university, Jaipur, India.
I have also trained National Family Health surveyors on maternal and child health initiatives and the coverage indicators.
I delivered a lecture on national program on control of blindness for students of Om Prakash Eye Institute, Amritsar, India

Research

My research involves data landscaping and analysis of the nutrition data in India which includes but not limited to micronutrient and biomarker status, anthropometric measurements, food composition, food consumption and food expenditure at the national and sub-national level. Apart from this, I contribute to fostering relationships with stakeholders for facilitating data access and usage and building partnerships for extensibility of the MAPS tool.
I also am interested in health systems strengthening, My PhD research topic was "Determinants of Data Utilisation for Evidence Based Programmatic Decision Making at Peripheral Level of Public Health Care Delivery Set ups in the State of Haryana, India."
I investigated and identified the factors which influenced data utilisation for routine programmatic decisions making by Medical Officers In Charges deputed at Primary Health Centres(PHCs) in Haryana, India. Apart from policy recommendations which would further be based on these identified factors to promote evidence based decision making, this research is also anticipated to add to the knowledge base.
Research Area
Nutrition
Vitamins and micronutrients
Disease and Health Conditions
Malnutrition
Country
India
Region
South Asia

Selected Publications

Technical Assistance Progress Assessment TAN Project Technical Assistance Assignment: Support the Revitalization and Restructuring of the Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC) to Steer National Level Nutrition Actions in the Country
SAHOTA, R; Eadara, S;
2020
Technical Assistance: Progress Assessment
TAN Project Technical Assistance Assignment: Support the
Revitalization and Restructuring of the Bangladesh National
Nutrition Council (BNNC) to Steer National Level Nutrition
Actions in the Country
Measuring Progress: Summary of Progress Assessments of Eight Technical Assistance Assignments from 2017-2019 by NTEAM's TAN project
Seikmans, K;
2020
Measuring Progress:
Summary of Progress Assessments of Eight Technical
Assistance Assignments from 2017-2019 by NTEAM's TAN project
Provincial Nutrition Response Plan for COVID 19
Nasir, M;
2020
Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Provincial Unit Planning and Development Board Government of Punjab: Provincial Nutrition Response Plan for COVID 19
Determining the impact of COVID-19 on nutrition: Projection of the possible malnutrition burden in post COVID-19 period in Bangladesh.
Rahman, K;
2020
Determining the impact of COVID-19 on nutrition: Projection of the possible malnutrition burden in post COVID-19 period in Bangladesh.
MONITORING REPORT 2018-2019 SECOND NATIONAL PLAN OF ACTION FOR NUTRITION
Maleque, Z;
2020
Second National Plan of Action for Nutrition (NPAN-2) (2016-2025) Annual Monitoring Report 2018-2019
Combating malnutrition in Bangladesh in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
SAHOTA, R; Eadara, S;
2020
Policy Brief: Combating malnutrition in Bangladesh in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
Factors associated with stillbirths in Haryana, India: a qualitative study
Negandhi, P; Neogi, S; Das, A; Chopra, S; Phogat, A; SAHOTA, R; Gupta, R; Zodpey, S; Gupta, R;
2018
WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health
Enabling information to action and evidence based decision making in public health care system in Haryana, India.
SAHOTA, R; Kumar P, A; Aggarwal, AK; Singh, S; Grewal, JS;
2018
Second National Conference on Health Technology Assessment, Department of Community Medicine & School of Public Health, PGIMER Chandigarh
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