Africa Health Research Institute

Professor Janet Seeley is a member of AHRI faculty, and professor of anthropology and health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). A social anthropologist by training, over the past 40 years Janet has undertaken extended periods of research in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea, focusing on broader aspects of people’s lives and livelihoods that influence health and health related behaviours.

She has been engaged in research on the social aspects of HIV since 1987, beginning with postdoctoral research in Zambia. In particular, she has looked at HIV across the life course and the impact of the epidemic on communities and people’s lives and livelihoods. This focus has broadened to engage with work on chronic conditions, more generally as well as with other epidemics, such as Covid-19.  She has also been active in research on poverty, social protection, mobility and migration. She led the social science programme for the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Research Unit in Uganda from 1989-1993 and again from 2008 – 2022.

Work at AHRI

In late 2014, Janet began providing time, support and leadership on social science and ethics to AHRI as part of the LSHTM collaboration with the institute. Over the past ten years she has gradually transitioned to more of a mentorship rather than leadership role with the social scientists in AHRI, focusing particularly on assisting postdoctoral social scientists establish themselves as independent scientists. Her research at AHRI covers a number of different areas related to health across the life course, focussing particularly on adolescents/young people, mobile populations, those aged over 50 years, and ethics in research. She takes an active role in supporting public engagement initiatives.

Projects at AHRI include:

1. Lending a Hand: Developing a support structure for young migrants in South Africa and Uganda.

Lending a Hand was a peer-led intervention which supported 500 young migrants in South Africa and Uganda (2021 – 2023). Trained peer navigators provided emotional support, service referrals, and practical guidance via call centres and one-on-one engagement. Adapted for remote delivery during Covid-19, the programme reduced barriers to care and improved access to services. The model highlights the value of community-based, youth-led approaches in addressing the needs of mobile adolescents in low-resource, urban settings. Read more here.

This project was supported by funding from UK Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Adolescent Health call 2018 grant (MR/S023607/1).

2. Nurturing the resilience of mobile youth to navigate health and wellbeing crises in southern Africa

This study, Nurturing the resilience of mobile youth to navigate health and wellbeing crises in southern Africa (Nurture4Youth) (2024-2028) builds on our learning from Lending a Hand.  It is being conducted in four settings, namely, KwaZulu-Natal and Johannesburg in South Africa and Lusaka and Livingstone in Zambia where partner institutions are located. Our overall aim is to develop and extend a strong research partnership to conduct policy-relevant research to enhance mobile adolescents and young people’s (mAYP) resilience to navigate access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, thereby contributing to their improved health and wellbeing. We also aim to strengthen capacities in the applicant South African, Zambian and UK institutions and for the young people we work with, to co-develop and lead an ambitious programme of youth-led work which enhances mAYP resilience, visibility and solidarity, as well as informs policy and practice on building responsive SRH services for mAYP.

This project is funded by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR156363) using UK international development funding from the UK Government.

Get in touch with Janet via janet.seeley@ahri.org 

Click here for a full list of publications.