Fabian Reitzug

Health Scientist

I’m a social scientist turned epidemiologist researching how human behaviour influences infectious disease transmission. Specifically, I am interested in how human water contact behaviour and movement influence the risk of becoming infected with the water-borne parasitic disease schistosomiasis in Uganda. To better understand these dynamics, I conducted fieldwork on Lake Victoria and Lake Albert as part of the SchistoTrack study. I used both self-reported data and GPS movement data to capture water contact behaviour, and I employ statistical and mathematical models to describe the complex human behaviours leading to schistosome infection. This work may help to inform more effective treatment strategies and water contact reduction interventions for schistosomiasis control.

I hold a master’s degree in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from Oxford. After graduating, I worked at the World Bank Group in Senegal, where I first learned about schistosomiasis. This experience led me to pursue a DPhil in the SchistoTrack project, supervised by Dr. Goylette Chami and Dr. Renaud Lambiotte.