Dr. Rohan Michael Ramesh is a public health physician and researcher with over 15 years of experience strengthening primary health care delivery in remote tribal and rural communities across South and Northeast India. He serves as faculty at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory at Christian Medical College, Vellore.
A strong advocate for field-based, tech-enabled solutions, Dr. Rohan specializes in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and digital health tools to improve maternal and child health, neglected tropical diseases, and access to health services in underserved geographies. Previously, he has led projects on strengthening health systems for maternal and child health, oral cancer screening with health workers using mobile platforms, mapping water and sanitation access, paragonimiasis surveillance, and a large Community-based cluster randomised trial evaluating the feasibility of interrupting the transmission of soil-transmitted helminths through mass drug administration.
A recipient of the DBT/Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellowship, his ongoing research focuses on developing geospatial risk stratification models to map and improve access to maternal and child health services in hilly terrains. Dr. Rohan also brings extensive experience in capacity building and leading large-scale field operations in complex settings.
Publications
1. Ramesh RM, Oswald WE, Israel GJ, Aruldas K, Galagan S, Legge H, Puthupalayam Kaliappan S, Walson J, Halliday KE, Ajjampur SSR. Representativeness of a mobile phone-based coverage evaluation survey following mass drug administration for soil-transmitted helminths: a comparison of participation between two cross-sectional surveys. BMJ Open. 2023 Oct 29;13(10):e070077. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-070077. PMID: 37899143; PMCID: PMC10619066.
2. Cáceres ÁL, Ramesh RM, Newmai P, Kikon R, Deckert A. Perceptions, health seeking behavior and utilization of maternal and newborn health services among an indigenous tribal community in Northeast India-a community-based mixed methods study. Front Public Health. 2023 Jul 6;11:1139334. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1139334. PMID: 37483938; PMCID: PMC10358725.
3. Aruldas K, Ramesh RM, Oswald WE, Janagaraj V, Titus A, Johnson J, Saxena M, Israel GJ, Halliday K, Walson JL, Means AR, & Ajjampur SSR*. Remote evaluation of STH program coverage: Experiences from the DeWorm3 study, India. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 17(11), e0011748 (2023).
4. Ramesh RM, Aruldas K, Marconi SD, Janagaraj V, Rose A, John SM, Moorthy M, Muliyil J, Saravanakumar PK, Ajjampur SSR, Sindhu KN. Impact of the COVID-19 National Lockdown on a Rural and Tribal Population of Tamil Nadu, Southern India: A Mixed-Methods Survey. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2022 Mar 16;. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.21-1139. PMID: 35294922; PMCID: PMC9128716.
5. Ramesh RM, Patrick S, Lotha Z, Azole, Aier A, Birur N P. Prevalence and determinants of oral potentially malignant lesions using mobile health in a rural block, northeast India. Trop Doct. 2022 Jan;52(1):53-60. doi: 10.1177/00494755211049973. PMID: 34791946
