B.A. (University of Mumbai);
M.S. (TISS, Mumbai);
D.Phil. (University College London)
Professor
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B.A. (University of Mumbai);
M.S. (TISS, Mumbai);
D.Phil. (University College London)
Dr. Sneha Krishnan works at the interstices between environment, humanitarian and public health domains. She has over 12 years of practical experience in designing, implementing, and undertaking policy research and impact evaluations related to leadership (e.g. local, faith-based, etc.), public health, health systems strengthening, capacity building, inclusion, and women empowerment. Her teaching portfolio includes Health Systems and Policy Strengthening, Humanitarian Health Assessment, Conflict and Health, Environmental Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, and Health Technologies.
Primarily, her work has focused on countries in the Global South. She researches far-flung areas that face regular impacts of climate change and disasters in the Global South and makes empirical and theoretical contributions to the field with her incisive analysis and writing portfolio.
She has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from University College London that focused on the resilience of communities recovering from floods, cyclones, and earthquakes in South Asia. Most of her collaborative work has been supported by donors such as Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), Medical Research Council-UK, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Water for Women, UK Aid, and European Commission. She worked as a Trial Manager/Research Fellow with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) on a cluster, randomized controlled trial on agriculture and nutrition in Odisha, funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She was Co-Investigator on a primary research project in Bangladesh on Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals and Health Systems Resilience funded by Medical Research Council UK. She was the Principal Investigator on a Water for Women-funded trial on child nutrition and environmental health in the Solomon Islands. She has supported several humanitarian actors such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, Norwegian Refugee Council, and Action Contre la Faim (ACF) in climate-and conflict-affected regions such as South Sudan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. She has experience working in conflict settings with displaced and/or refugee populations, and international outbreak response operations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her work centers on high levels of gender sensitivity, engagement, and inclusion of women in issues related to different types of displacement. She has a proven academic record through her publications in various peer-reviewed high-impact factor journals, including Lancet Planetary Health, Climate and Development, Maternal Child Nutrition, Trials, and Environmental Hazards.
a. Environmental Health
Living on an increasingly warming planet, we need better understanding of climate change impacts, biodiversity loss, increasing disaster risks and plastic pollution and how they affect health of both humans and non-humans on the planet. We will explore the health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, displacement and conflict, and anti-microbial resistance.
In this course, we will explore various concepts such as environmental health, planetary health and one health approaches to understand how health of the planet is intrinsically tied to the health of its human and non-human entities on earth. We will explore strategies, approaches and frameworks to integrate environmental issues and health consequences.
b. Technologies in Health and Development
What is technology? How can it be used for betterment of lives?
What is artificial intelligence? Is it a necessary evil that we have to live with for a sustainable future?
This course is targeted to public health students to learn critical concepts in the intersecting fields of health and technologies, environment, and development. Using ideas of surveillance and data feminism we will critically look at existing health policies and understand the limitations of national data governance frameworks. We will be drawing on knowledges from other disciplines such as social engineering, environmental studies, political ecology, social anthropology, gender, and caste studies engaging in interpretive inquiry critical analysis. The aim of the course is to engage post-graduate students in Jindal School of Public Health with critical thinking about the impacts and ethics of health technologies, and innovation, data feminism, digital surveillance. We will also learn basic design principles such as Seven Petals framework that will help us in developing a holistic understanding of technology’s role in tackling concerns of environment, health and climate change. Participation in this course will help students to actively reframe their relationship in how these tools can be part of the imagination to develop newer ways to foster social and political change with reflexivity.
c. Health Policy and Systems Research
Students of Public Health will be aware of the seven building blocks advocated by the World Health Organization. This course builds a wider understanding of Health Systems and Health Policy Research and Analysis within the Indian context, and in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in general. While access to health care is a challenge in many resource-poor settings, this course will clarify terms such as health system, health institutions and facilities and service providers. A practical aspect of stakeholder mapping will help the students identify and collaborate with various stakeholders within any given health system and the theory of street level bureaucrats will provide a fundamental understanding on how policies are implemented.
d. Humanitarian Health Systems
This course is not intended for the weak hearted. If you want to know how it is for populations living in fragile contexts and humanitarian crises you can go for any other course but in this course we will learn what you have to know and do about health conditions for populations living in humanitarian settings or protracted crises. COVID-19 is not the only public health emergency this world has witnessed and it will not be the only one. What are the health consequences of other humanitarian emergencies resulting in mass population displacements or refugee influx? According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), more than 70% of the world’s poorest are estimated to be living in fragile contexts. Violence, conflicts, human-induced crises, and natural hazards restrict people’s access to healthcare services. Climate change, population growth, mass migration, and antimicrobial resistance are hampering the achievement of Universal Health Coverage.
The public health cluster intersects with water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, food security as well as shelter. This course is designed keeping in mind the needs of a cluster coordinator working for health sector, or a WHO/UNICEF Programme officer designing a public health response to a crises or emergency or even a consultant for the national health ministry tasked to evaluate the outcomes of a health crises intervention.
Co-PI, UK Foreign Commission Development office, XCEPT funded “Access to Healthcare for Women and Girls in Indo-Myanmar Border” (2023-24) £35,000
Co-Applicant Royal Academy of Engineering, RESCUE: Recovery for Equitable Support in Climate Undermined Environments, (2024-25) £10,000
Co-PI, Urban Studies Forum Seminar Series Award (2023-24) £10,000
Co-Investigator, Royal Academy of Engineering Development of a Proof-of-Concept of a Digital Public Infrastructure for Energy Systems (2023-24) £20,000
Principal Investigator, Humanitarian Open Street Maps, Critical Perspectives on Disaster Data, USD$2,500
Aditi Sharan, Disasters and the “Other Gender”: Exploring the Experiences of the Hijra Community in Disasters in India, Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, the University of Auckland, 2023.