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Research groups

Tanvi Rai

BSc, BA, MPH, PhD


Senior Researcher

I am a mixed methods researcher with a PhD in public health. I am a co-applicant and researcher on an ESRC-funded project exploring the experiences of people and families affected by Covid-19, with a focus on how the pandemic has worsened existing social and health inequalities. Since April 2021, I am also leading a NIHR RfPB-funded project (NOURISH-UK) exploring decision-making about infant feeding among mothers and birthing parents living with HIV in the UK. I am a tutor on the Oxford Qualitative Courses. 

I joined the department in 2018 to help develop an intervention to enable people who have experienced a stroke or TIA to measure their blood pressure at home (The BP:Together study). Being keen to reflect UK stroke demographics in our sample, I used multiple community-based approaches (in addition to recruitment through primary care) to recruit participants who were ethnically and socioeconomically diverse (with success). In 2019, I conducted a qualitative interview study with chief investigators of large, multi-site RCTs funded by the NIHR exploring how they choose their research sites. This work was commissioned by the NIHR to explore ways to enable more research to be conducted in areas of greatest patient need.

Previously I was a post-doctoral researcher at the Patient Experience Research Group at Imperial College London studying the experiences of people living with HIV in London, in light of changing guidelines for HIV care and the clinical transformation of HIV from a degenerative and fatal infection to a chronic condition. I continue to hold an honorary Visiting Researcher position at Imperial. 

I completed my PhD in 2013 at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. My thesis investigated the relationship between labour migration and HIV in India and how it changes over the life course of migrant families, using qualitative and quantitative methods. 

Key publications

Recent publications

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