Ahang Kareem

Biography

Ahang Abdullah Kareem is a Research Officer in the School of Health and Social Care, contributing to the ESNEFT–University of Essex collaborative CoastGEM (Coastal Gap Equality Management) project for Stroke Care. Her work supports the project’s aim of identifying gaps in the regional stroke care pathway and generating evidence to guide equitable, community-focused stroke service delivery. In her role, Ahang plays a key part in the day-to-day coordination of project activities, stakeholder engagement, and maintaining productive collaboration with influential regional partners. She contributes to shaping project direction, ensuring alignment with regional priorities and resources, and supports the preparation of research outputs that contribute to the impact agenda, including REF-related objectives. She also leads and contributes to data analysis, interpretation of findings, and producing multiple project outputs that capture meaningful outcomes and emerging evidence. Ahang brings extensive experience working with United Nations organisations, international development agencies, and government bodies. Her professional background includes community health and empowerment, public health emergency response, health promotion and vaccination campaigns, and nutrition and maternal–child health programmes. This has included analysing regional datasets, and preparing bulletin reports, leading capacity-building initiatives for healthcare professionals, supporting the adoption of disease-surveillance software in regional health settings. She has contributed to infectious disease surveillance and monitoring programmes in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), including work on the Early Warning Alert and Response Network (EWARN) to strengthen early detection and response to communicable diseases among migrant communities. This involved applying disease-surveillance systems in humanitarian emergencies to rapidly detect potential outbreaks of epidemic-prone diseases, managing frontline staff, overseeing daily field operations, collecting and analysing data, and producing weekly and monthly bulletin reports for government bodies, international partners, and funders. Her experience in humanitarian and resource-limited contexts includes serving as a Public Health Officer with Oxfam, where she helped deliver preventive healthcare services and community-based health promotion to deprived and conflict-affected communities. Ahang has also led collaborative projects with regional government bodies and United Nations agencies. Notably, she managed a UNICEF-Iraq project on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), providing training, support, and essential resources to frontline workers allocation displaced and vulnerable populations. Her work included establishing mobile teams and clinics, monitoring nutrition and health indicators, analysing trends, and producing monthly bulletin reports for internal and external stakeholders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ahang participated in regional preparedness and emergency response activities with government agencies, WHO, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). She led surveillance and response mobile teams, analysed large COVID-19 datasets to identify trends and anticipate surges, and supported early detection efforts. Her responsibilities included coordinating community-based surveillance in high-risk, deprived, and conflict-affected settings through community mapping, timely case detection, isolation management, contact tracing, and ongoing monitoring. Prior to these roles, she successfully prepared and led a public health and nutrition project grant, contributing to evidence-based programme design and implementation.

Qualifications

• Level 7 in Biomedical Science: Biochemistry, Physiology, and Anatomy London Metropolitan University,

• Master of Public Health Tehran University of Medical Sciences,

• BSc in Community Health Sulaimani Polytechnic University,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Member of the Stroke Care Inequalities Project, School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex (23/10/2023 - present)

Other academic

• Research Officer, Interdisciplinary Research and Practice Division, School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex (23/10/2023 - present)