Dr Aileen Kitching - Utilising basic public health skills in a humanitarian emergency
Channel: Epidemiology and Public Health UCC
Date: 15/12/2016

Dr Aileen Kitching is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine in the HSE-South Department of Public Health, where her portfolio of work includes HIV & STIs, and health inequalities/ social inclusion.  After a background in clinical medicine, which included hospital medicine & general practice in Ireland, Scotland and Australia, Aileen worked with Médecins sans Frontières in post-war Liberia, before moving fully into public health. From 2007-2009, she completed a 2-year European fellowship in field epidemiology in London (EPIET), and from 2009-2015 completed her specialisation in public health medicine, with a main interest in and experience of communicable disease control (surveillance and outbreak response), at local, regional and national level in the UK, as well as internationally. This included: 3 months in the Outbreak Response Unit at the National Institute of Communicable Disease in South Africa in 2012, 3 months as Health Cluster Coordinator with the World Health Organization in the Philippines supporting the response to Typhoon Haiyan in 2014, and 3 months as part of the Ebola Response Team with the WHO in Sierra Leone in 2015.  Outside of her HSE role, she is currently President of the Board of the EPIET Alumni Network, and a Trustee on the Board of the Traveller Movement in Britain