Dr Ishtar Govia

Academic position: Visiting Research Fellow

Department: IAS

Biography:

Dr Ishtar Govia is trained as a psychologist and is a Senior Lecturer with the Jamaica-based Epidemiology Research Unit of the Caribbean Institute for Health Research, The University of the West Indies. Her methodological areas of expertise include: qualitative; mixed methods; equitable co-production; design, development, evaluation of complex interventions. Her substantive areas include: social determinants of health; shared risk and protective factors; context-, lifespan-, and gender-sensitive holistic and integrated approaches for prevention and management of NCDs, especially mental and neurological conditions, dementia and cardiovascular disease. Central to Dr Govia’s work is the cultivation of partnerships and capacity building for health and social care research in the Caribbean, small island developing states, LMICs, and resource-constrained contexts in HICs.

Research Projects:

Projects include: dementia care improvement in LMICs, especially Caribbean countries and small island developing states; timely detection of cognitive impairment and dementia using blood plasma biomarkers and readying LMIC healthcare systems for same; caregiving for persons as they age, especially those living with dementia and gender equity in caregiving; team-based approaches to care management for hypertension in the Caribbean; the impact of COVID on the tourism sector in the Caribbean; syndemic approaches to the prevention of diet- and physical activity-related NCDs; capacity strengthening of NGOs and academic institutions for research and advocacy for mental, neurological, and substance-use disorders.

Teaching:

At the Caribbean Institute for Health Research at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Jamaica, I teach undergraduate medical students research methods. I also teach in our M.Sc. in Epidemiology and M.Sc. in Nutrition taught Master's degree programmes and supervise Research Papers for students enrolled in the programmes. Current supervisees are finishing papers related to the social determinants of health, migration and health, and multimorbidity (predictors, relationship with health service useage, and associations with quality of life).