Caryl Feldacker, PhD, MPH, has over 20 years of international experience focused on ensuring quality public health programming and rigorous program monitoring and evaluation (M&E), including more than ten years conducting HIV-related implementation science research in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Feldacker is the co-principal investigator (PI) on the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) Integrated Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) program in Zimbabwe. Her current research focuses on digital health solutions to improve the quality of patient care while reducing provider workload and program costs. She is PI for four National Institutes for Health (NIH) studies using interactive, two-way texting (2wT) between patients and providers to improve patient retention in care, provide post-operative telehealth, and improve data quality in Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. For each initiative, she partners closely with ministries of health and local partners with the aim of helping strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and research capacity for sustained improvement. Her digital health interventions employ the open-source Community Health Toolkit in collaboration with Medic.
Her broad implementation and research experience includes exploring trends in adverse events in VMMC programs; closing HIV service delivery gaps; strengthening routine data quality for accurate and timely reporting; task-shifting of healthcare workers; understanding patterns in loss-to-follow-up within routine HIV program settings; strengthening integration of family planning into HIV-related care; and expanding electronic medical record systems to provide integrated patient care.
Her current collaborations include partnerships with Lighthouse Trust (Lilongwe, Malawi); Aurum Institute and The Centre for HIV-AIDS Prevention Studies – CHAPS (South Africa); and Zimbabwe Technical Assistance, Training and Education Centre for Health – Zim-TTECH (Harare, Zimbabwe).
Dr. Feldacker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington (UW). In addition to her work with I-TECH, Dr. Feldacker is affiliated with the UW Global Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children (GlobalWACh) where she aims to translate 2wT-based advantages for the postpartum care context.
Program Highlights
