Val is a behavioural scientist whose principal interest is in hygiene (its evolution, its history, its relationship with water and sanitation, and how to improve it). She is Senior Lecturer in Hygiene Promotion and directs the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Originally trained in engineering, she has a Master’s in Public Health and a PhD in Anthropology.

She is on the board of management and the audit committee of the LSHTM and the management committee of the History Centre. She was a founder of the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap and is on the steering committee. Val organises the MSc study module on Designing Disease Control Programmes in Developing Countries and teaches Tropical Environmental Health. She carries out advisory work in Africa, Asia and the UK for organisations such as DFID, the World Bank and Industry.

Val is a regular contributor to TV and radio (Channel 4 series the Anatomy of Disgust, BBC Human Instincts, The Body Snatchers, Body shocks, Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC World Service, etc).

Val’s research interests include:

• the evolution of human behaviour, the role of disgust and its relationship to hygiene and morality
• handwashing and its impact on public health,
• developing new approaches to public health through evolutionary psychology, marketing and public-private partnerships
• the measurement of hygiene practices
• improving sanitation in developing countries through marketing
• the history of hygiene

Findings

Some of the implications of Val’s research:

• handwashing with soap can save perhaps a million lives a year, reducing diarrhoea risk by about 47% and the risk of respiratory infection 23%
• handwashing behaviour can be changed and is cost effective. (A recent World Bank comparative review suggests that hygiene promotion may be the single most cost-effective means of preventing disease in developing countries.)
• working with industry and using marketing approaches can lead to effective large scale health promotion programmes.
• disgust evolved to protect animals, including humans, from disease and helps explain the peculiar history of hygiene.

Val is currently working on the development and testing of a new approach to behaviour change with collaborator Robert Aunger.

Join in the research! Take the webtest on disgust, hygiene and morality.

- Masters of Marketing: Bringing Private Sector Skills to Public Health Partnerships. American Journal of Public Health 2007; 97 (4):634-41. CURTIS VA, Garbrah-Aidoo N, Scott B.

- Dirt, Disgust and Disease: a Natural History of Hygiene. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.CURTIS V.

- Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review. Lancet Infectious Diseases 2003, 3 275-281. CURTIS, V. and S. Cairncross.

- Kinds of Behaviour (draft for comments)Aunger R and CURTIS V.

- Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2004, DOI098 (rsbl.2003.0144). CURTIS, V., R. Aunger, T. Rabie.

- Hygiene in the home: relating bugs to behaviour. Social Science and Medicine 2003;57(4):657-672.CURTIS VA, Biran A, Deverell K, Hughes C, Bellamy K, Drasar B.

- Evidence for behaviour change following a hygiene promotion programme in Burkina Faso. Bulletin of WHO 2001, 79 (6) 518-526.CURTIS V, Kanki B, Cousens S. et al.

- Dirt, disgust and disease: is hygiene in our genes? Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44(1): 17-31. CURTIS, V. and A. Biran (2001).

- Hygiene: how myths, monsters and mothers-in-law can promote behaviour change. Journal of Infection, 43 75-79. CURTIS, V. (2001)

- Handwashing and Risk of Respiratory Infections: A Quantitative Systematic Review. Tropical Medicine and International Health 11(3): 269-278. Rabie, T. and V. CURTIS (2005).

- Achieving the 'good life': Why some people want latrines in rural Benin. Social Science and Medicine 61: 2446-2459.Jenkins, M. and V. CURTIS (2005).

- Is Hygiene Promotion Cost-Effective? A case study in Burkina Faso. Tropical Medicine and International Health 7(11) 960-969.Borghi, J., L. Guinness, CURTIS V. (2002)

- Talking dirty: how to save a million lives. International Journal of Environmental Health Research 13 S73-S79.CURTIS, V. (2003)

- Serotonin-a link between disgust and immunity? Medical Hypotheses 68(1): 61-66. Rubio-Godoy, M., R. Aunger, and CURTIS V. (2007).

- Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at Kyoto: handwashing and sanitation need marketing as if they were consumer products. British Medical Journal 327(July): 3-4. CURTIS, V. and S. Cairncross (2003).

- Domestic hygiene and diarrhoea, pinpointing the problem. Tropical Medicine and International Health 5(1): 22-32.CURTIS, V. A., S. Cairncross, et al. (2000).

- The art of persuasion, New Scientist; 184(2478):21 CURTIS, V. (2004)

- Dirt and diarrhoea: Formative research for hygiene promotion programmes. Health Policy and Planning 12(2): 122-131.CURTIS, V., B. Kanki, et al. (1997).

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