Sachin R. Atre, PhD
Sachin Atre is a medical anthropologist who has 18 years of experience in public health research. Since November 2015, he has served as the Study Coordinator for the study Impact of Diabetes on TB Treatment Outcomes, funded by NIH/NIAID funded project on “Impact of Diabetes on TB Treatment Outcomes” which is in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University USA, BJ Medical College, India and Dr. D.Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Pimpri, Pune, India. He played a key role in setting up a new study site at Dr. D.Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre and currently coordinates activities there. Additionally, he also helps to coordinate activities for miDOT, which is testing video-based observation of treatment among TB patients. He also led efforts in setting up infection control measures (implementation of Ultra Violet Germicidal Irradiation, shortly known as UVGI) at BJ Medical College Pune.
Dr. Atre has received a PhD from the University of Pune and his doctoral research work was focused on understanding biosocial determinants of drug-resistant TB among patients in urban and rural areas of Maharashtra. During Sept. 2013-Sept. 2014, he was awarded with Fulbright-Nehru Post doc Fellowship at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The work at Harvard was focused on addressing policy needs for multidrug-resistant TB management and control in India involving a systematic review of studies on MDR-TB prevalence in India. The policy paper based on this work has been listed among the most influential articles recommended by Springer-Nature group journal editors. After returning from Harvard, Dr. Atre served as an independent technical consultant for the Global TB Program of the World Health Organization during 2014-15. The work involved a literature review and documentation of mandatory TB notification policies and practices among high, medium and low TB incidence countries especially to point out challenges in high TB incidence countries and to provide a guidance on how those can be tackled. It has been published in the European Respiratory Journal in December 2016. Dr. Atre is an academic collaborator for Global Burden of Disease (GBD) initiative led by Prof. Chris Murray.
Before going to Harvard on Fulbright fellowship, Dr. Atre has worked with the Foundation for Research in Community Health (FRCH) for 12 years and for a half year for Maharashtra Association of Anthropological Sciences-Centre for Health Research and Development (MAAS-CHRD). His work encompassed a wide range of areas such as tuberculosis, diabetes, access to medicines, ageing, nutrition, leprosy, family planning etc. which have cross-cutting interests of social sciences and public health. He also served for a consulting firm at New Delhi on two different projects, one focusing on ‘IDRC’s (Canada) Strategic Evaluation of Research Excellence,’ and the other an evaluation of the ‘Awahan Project’ funded by the Gates Foundation.
Dr. Atre has presented his work at international conferences and/meetings in 12 countries. He has served as an invited reviewer for reputed journals such as WHO Bulletin, The Lancet Global Health, PLoS One, International Journal of TB and Lung Disease and BMC Public Health etc. Dr. Atre has contributed in about 25 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and in majority of them he is the lead author.