Anne Cockcroft

anne.cockroft [at] mcgill.ca (Anne Cockcroft  MB BS MD FRCP FFOM)

Associate Professor, Dept of Family Medicine

Anne Cockcroft is a clinician and implementation research specialist with a background in respiratory and occupational medicine in the UK. Working with a research and training NGO (CIET) since 1994, she has led large scale community-based implementation research projects in some 20 countries, especially in South Asia and Southern Africa, and in Canada. A strong focus has been access to and experience of health services by the most vulnerable, working with health providers and policy makers to use evidence to develop equitable and effective services. Most of her research has been in resource-poor settings: First Nations in Canada, and the poorest populations of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

In the last decade, her work has focussed increasingly on structural interventions. She leads a national stepped-wedge trial of structural interventions for HIV prevention in Botswana (INSTRUCT).

Dr Cockcroft trains health planners and researchers in Southern Africa in evidence-based planning. She leads a project funded by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to train HIV researchers and health planners, in English, French and Portuguese, leading to a 12-credit Certificate from McGill Family Medicine. The training in evidence-based policy she supported for parliamentarians in Botswana was recently featured in Science.

Keywords: Implementation research, social audit, structural interventions, community-based research, HIV prevention, cluster randomised controlled trials.

Projects: Community Information for Empowerment and Transparency (CIET); Inter-ministerial National Structural Intervention Trial (INSTRUCT).

Current and recent Research Grants
Video edutainment at the doorstep: impact on maternal and infant outcomes in Toro local authority in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Canadian Principal Investigator. Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI). $1m 2015-2020 (awarded)

Capacity building for HIV researchers in SADC member states. Principal Investigator. Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) HIV fund. $1m 2014-2016.

Inter-ministerial National Structural Interventions Trial (INSTRUCT): a national stepped wedge randomized controlled trial of HIV prevention in Botswana. Co-Investigator. IDRC. $2.3m 2013-2018.

African Development of AIDS Prevention trials (ADAPT): training of planners and legislators on the use of randomized controlled trials related to HIV prevention. Co-Investigator. Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI). Total $1.6m. 2007-2010 (first phase), 2011-2014.

Prevention in favour of the choice disabled: a randomized controlled trial of a complex intervention to reduce HIV risk in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland. Co-Investigator. IDRC. $850,000. 2008-2013.