Institute for International Health and Development - Staff Profiles

Oonagh O’Brien

Areas of interest

• HIV and sexual health
• The impact of HIV treatment on social development in resource poor settings
• Gender, development and health
• Monitoring and evaluation systems
• Participatory appraisal and evaluation

Biographical statement

Oonagh O’Brien is an anthropologist whose current research interests are in gender, HIV and sexual health, with a particular interest in examining the impact of HIV treatment on social development in resource poor countries. She co ordinates the modules on ‘Gender, Health and Development’, ‘HIV and Development’, ‘Participatory Appraisal and Evaluation’ and ‘Independent Study’.

In over twenty years of experience working in HIV and sexual health Oonagh has previously worked on clinical networks and HIV care, HIV in European Prisons and on community based action research with Irish migrants in London. She is a founder member of the Gender and Health Partnership (GaHP) , and has also worked extensively with participatory appraisal, as a social development adviser for DFID on a water management project in Colombia, Latin America; with women’s projects and regeneration projects in the UK, and recently as an adviser to a needs assessment being carried on the health needs of Africans affected by HIV in Scotland.

She has been responsible within IIHD for a partnership between DFID health projects in Nepal (District health Strengthening Project and Safer Motherhood Project Nepal) for capacity building in social development and health. This included in-country delivery of the module Participatory Appraisal and Evaluation.

Currently she is involved in research being carried out in Partnership with Makarere University ( Uganda) on the social impact of treatment on South West Uganda.

Recent publications

2004 Butcher K and O’Brien O Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV Mainstreaming JSI UK (Report for DFID Uganda).
2003 Strang, A, Ager, A & O’Brien, O Indicators of Integration: The Experience of Integration. Report to the Home Office Immigration Research and Statistics Service.
2003 O’Brien O and White A; Gender and Health: the case for gender sensitive health policy and health care delivery. The Kings Fund http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/Free/index.cfm?l=g
2003 Lowbury,R and O’Brien O Networking for quality in HIV Treatment and Care Report Medical Foundation for AIDS & Sexual Health; a charity supported by the BMA http://www.medfash.org.uk/publications/current.html#Networkingforquality
2001 Lowbury,R and O’Brien O Working together for quality in HIV treatment and care in AIDS and Hepatitis Digest, no 84, 2001 (http://www.rsm.ac.uk/p ub/ahd%2084.pdf )
1998 O’Brien,O and Power,R. HIV and a Migrant Community: The Irish in Britain; UCL Medical School & Action Group for Irish Youth http://www.irish.org.uk/research_hiv.shtml
1998 O'Brien,O and Tierney, L. The Irish Dimension to Drug Use and HIV in Britain in Journal of Drug Issues: Special Issue on Britain, by Power, R.(Ed)
1997 O'Brien, O and Stevens,A. A Question of Equivalence: A report of the Implementation of International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS in Prisons of the European Union, Cranstoun Drug Services, London.
1996 Haour-Knipe,M. and O'Brien,O. Programme Evaluation and O'Brien, O and Khan, S. (1996) Racism and Stigma. Chapters of Crossing Borders: Migration, Ethnicity AIDS, by Haour-Knipe,M. and Rector R. (Eds) ( Social Aspects of AIDS series, Series Editor, Aggleton, P.) Taylor and Francis, London.

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