Dr. Syed Abbas is a public health researcher. His primary area of interest is using inter and transdisciplinary approaches to examine health systems response to zoonotic and other infectious diseases and the politics of multisector ‘One Health’ partnerships around zoonotic diseases. He is a Research Fellow at IDS.
Abbas is interested in studying how technical experts and program managers at different levels of governance and from health and agriculture sectors employ scientific evidence for decision-making in dynamic social and political environments. He uses a range of methods in his work, including ethnographic approaches, policy analysis and evaluation approaches.
He is the One Health lead for the evaluation of the UK Fleming Fund programme and is advising World Health Organization on strengthening implementation of multisector partnerships around zoonotic influenza. Abbas has conducted research around decreasing health risks from poultry farming in the One Health Poultry Hub. He is currently working on examining the links between economic and biological risks on zoonotic influenza preparedness in Bangladesh, UK and Vietnam and on identifying lessons for pandemic preparedness from instances of transdisciplinary engagements in Sierra Leone. Abbas has been a contributor to the SSHAP partnership and has examined mpox response in Nigeria.
Abbas has been awarded the Gates Grand Challenges Exploration award for developing One Health metrics as well as a UK Commonwealth Scholarship award. He led the establishment of the Roadmap to Combat Zoonoses in India initiative when based at the Public Health Foundation of India.
TEACHING
Abbas co-convenes the Health & Development module which includes students from IDS as well as Brighton & Sussex Medical School. In addition, Abbas also lectures on evaluation methods and politics of multisector partnerships in the modules “Theory and Practice of Impact Evaluation” & “Sustainability and Policy Processes”, respectively.
For PhD applicants
Abbas welcomes PhD applications around the following themes:
- Politics and Practice of multisector collaborations in health and development
- Role of technical experts and middle level bureaucrats in epidemic response
- Research examining links between health, agriculture, biodiversity sectors
