Raghupathy Anchala

Biography

Raghu is a Chest Physician and a Public Health and Primary Care Specialist. He graduated (MBBS) from one of the premier medical institutes in India (AFMC, 1996). He was awarded distinctions in Physiology, Biochemistry and Rhinotolaryngology (ENT) subjects; stood second in University (MBBS first year) and first in College (MBBS first year); was college cadet adjutant and secretary students’ scientific society, AFMC during his graduation. He then worked as a General Practitioner for the next 5 years in tribal and rural areas of Satara district, Maharashtra, India (1998-2002). Ground realities of a high Tuberculosis (TB), occupational lung diseases (farmers lung and bysinnosis - Satara is a predominantly agricultural belt) and chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) burden leading to lowered quality of life among patients suffering with CRDs led him to pursue post graduation residency training in TB and Chest Diseases (2003-2004) from B.J. Medical College, University of Pune, India. Although residency training honed his clinical skills, realising the inadequacy of his training in clinical research, epidemiological data gathering and analytical skills, and to augment the above mentioned skills, he worked under Dr. Sundeep Salvi (mentor and co supervisor during post graduation) in a specialised setting dedicated for epidemiological and clinical trials research in chest diseases (Chest Research Foundation, Pune; 2005). He then moved to the pharmaceutical sector to sharpen his clinical trial and project management skills (Unichem and Elder Pharmaceuticals Limited, 2006- mid 2007). He applied and was awarded PHFI's future faculty fellowship and Aids International Training and Research Program (AITRP – Fogarty, NIH) to complete his MPH from Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, USA (2007-2008) and was awarded Outstanding Student Award, Masters Level in 2008 by the GSPH, University of Pittsburgh for his GPA of 3.99 on a scale of 4.. He then joined as senior Lecturer at PHFI - IIPHH from Jan 2009 until July 2010. He was the Principal Investigator for Operational research capacity building project funded by the IUATLD (The Union) during 2009-2010 (USD 23,784). He was promoted to Assistant Professor in Aug 2010. He applied and was awarded the Wellcome Trust PHFI PhD research Fellowship (Oct 2010 to Sep 2013 – was awarded 20,000 GBP for conducting his doctoral research work on decision support systems for management of hypertension in primary care settings of India - for a period of 2 years in India) and was also awarded Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholarship (from Oct 2010 to March 2011 and then from April 2013 until Sep2013). He completed his PhD in Public Health and Primary Care from Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit at University of Cambridge in Sep 2013 (70% time for PhD and 30% time for institutional activities from 2010-2013). During his PhD work, he has published 5 first author publications and 6 co-author publications. He is now an Associate Professor at IIPHH from Oct 2013 onwards. He has high impact factor publications in NEJM and Plos One journals. He has developed course content and has been teaching on epidemiology, research methods, operational research, drug discovery (IIPHD), nutritional epidemiology (DL), GCP and clinical trial modules for courses at IIPHH since 2009. He also holds an Adjunct Faculty position at University of Hyderabad, where he teaches both epidemiology I and II modules for the MPH program that is jointly run by IIPHH and UoH.

Research Interest

Public Health