Hensen Bernadette

I am an epidemiologist whose research focusses on the design, implementation and evaluation of strategies to improve access to sexual health services. I have an interest in the social determinants of sexual health and of access to services, and in the co-development and evaluation of interventions to address these determinants. My research uses a variety of methods, including cluster-randomised trials, non-randomised evaluations, cross sectional surveys (including respondent-driven and time-location sampling surveys), systematic reviews and qualitative methods. 

Currently, I am co-PI of the CHoNGeTSa study, which aims to estimate the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections among adolescents and young people aged 15-24 in Lusaka, Zambia, and Impact Evaluation work package lead for a multi-disease, including HIV, intervention for men to overcome health systems barriers in Zambia.

Until 2022, I worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where I was PI of a study to understand barriers to HIV-related services among men in Zambia and to co-design an intervention to improve their uptake of HIV-related services and co-PI of a study in Senegal to co-design an intervention to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services among adolescents aged 15 to 19. I was co-investigator of cluster-randomised trials to estimate the impact of community-based, peer-led, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services on knowledge of HIV status among adolescents and young people aged 15 to 24 in Zambia (the Yathu Yathu trial) and a community-based distribution of HIV self-testing kits, a trial nested in the HPTN 071 (PopART) trial in Zambia. I was an epidemiologist on a non-randomised study to estimate the impact of DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe), a multi-component intervention to reduce HIV incidence among adolescent girls and young women, on HIV incidence among young women who sell sex in Zimbabwe.

I organise the Design and Evaluation of Health Programmes (DEHP) short course, teach on other Master's (short) courses and supervise PhD students.