Diego Bassani

Diego Bassani is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto. He is a Senior Scientist at the Research Institute at The Hospital for Sick Children, and the Director of the International Program Evaluation Unit at the Centre for Global Child Health. His research focuses on large-scale studies in maternal and child health, including multi-country analyses of national surveys. Dr. Bassani has conducted important research on child growth and development, the causes and distribution of child deaths, coverage of health interventions, identification of risk factors for child mortality, program evaluation, and large-scale field trials in maternal and child health in multiple countries.

After gathering extensive experience in collecting and analyzing population health data in low- and middle-income countries, Dr. Bassani has decided to revisit the focus of his research program, to address major barriers in population health measurement, namely the timeliness and accuracy of data.

To achieve this, he plans to take an interdisciplinary approach that integrates knowledge and methods from network science and epidemiology, paving the way to a novel transdisciplinary network-based population health research program. Dr. Bassani is currently working with network scientists toward the development of novel methodological approaches to survey design, sampling, and data collection. These novel methods use a large set of multi-country standardized national surveys to expose the underlying complex network structure of populations, traditionally treated as unstructured collections of individuals in epidemiological studies.

By reconstructing unobserved networks of populations, Dr. Bassani aims to re-examine a broad range of health dynamics. He is particularly interested in using influential network nodes identified through these reconstructions to develop novel network-based sampling designs and inferential methods for large-scale surveys. These methods would allow for more frequent data collection, early detection of emerging diseases and risks, and timely response to changes in disease patterns, all critical to evidence-based decision-making.

Research Interests

• Epidemiological methods
• Complex systems in epidemiology
• Network science in epidemiology
• Child Health and Development
• Program Evaluation
• Global Health
• Large-scale Epidemiological Studies
• Maternal and Child Health
• Health Policy Research

U of T Positions

Associate Professor – Paediatrics/Epidemiology  
Department of Paediatrics, Division of Paediatric Medicine  
 
Associate Professor – Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Graduate Unit) 

Affiliated Sites

• SickKids Centre for Global Child Health
• Dalla Lana School of Public Health Faculty Profile
• ISI Foundation Profile

1. Anthropometric data quality assessment in multisurvey studies of child growth. Perumal N, Namaste S, Qamar H, Aimone A, Bassani DG, Roth DE. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020 Jul 16:nqaa162. PMID: 32672330 
2. Feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of group antenatal care in Senegalese health posts: a pilot implementation trial. McKinnon B, Sall M, Vandermorris A, Traoré M, Lamesse-Diedhiou F, McLaughlin K, Bassani D. Health Policy Plan. 2020 Jun 1;35(5):587-599. PMID: 32155254 
3. Effect of Parental Counseling on Infants' Healthy Sleep Habits in Brazil: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Santos IS, Del-Ponte B, Tovo-Rodrigues L, Halal CS, Matijasevich A, Cruz S, Anselmi L, Silveira MF, Hallal PRC, Bassani DG. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Dec 2;2(12):e1918062. PMID: 31860110 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial. 
4. National, regional, and state-level all-cause and cause-specific under-5 mortality in India in 2000-15: a systematic analysis with implications for the Sustainable Development Goals. Liu L, Chu Y, Oza S, Hogan D, Perin J, Bassani DG, Ram U, Fadel SA, Pandey A, Dhingra N, Sahu D, Kumar P, Cibulskis R, Wahl B, Shet A, Mathers C, Lawn J, Jha P, Kumar R, Black RE, Cousens S. Lancet Glob Health. 2019 Jun;7(6):e721-e734. PMID: 31097276 Free PMC article. 
5. Effect of correcting for gestational age at birth on population prevalence of early childhood undernutrition. Perumal N, Roth DE, Perdrizet J, Barros AJD, Santos IS, Matijasevich A, Bassani DG. Emerg Themes Epidemiol. 2018 Feb 6;15:3. PMID: 29441118 Free PMC article.

See all of Diego Bassani's publications:

• PubMed
• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar
• MedRxiv
• arXiv
• SSRN
• Europe PMC

Policy Profile

• Sage Policy Profile

Other

• Web of Science
• Scopus
• ORCID
• Dimensions
• University of Toronto

Databases

• Borealis

Code

• Github
• GithubLab