Batya Elul, PhD

  • Associate Professor, Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center
646-303-2441
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Overview

Batya Elul, PhD, MSc, has over 20 years of experience conducting applied research on HIV and reproductive health in resource-limited settings. Since 2005, her research has focused on optimizing outcomes across the HIV care continuum in the context of massive and rapid scale-up of HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa under the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She has a a particular interest in the use of patient-level and aggregate data collected routinely as part of HIV service scale-up to answer pressing implementation science questions. From 2010-2014, she was the Director of Strategic Information at ICAP (www.icap.columbia.edu) where she led efforts to collect, manage, analyze and disseminate data on over 2.1 million people living with HIV enrolled in HIV care at 4,000 PEPFAR-supported clinics. Prior to joining Columbia's Mailman School, Dr. Elul was a Program Associate at the Population Council in New York and New Delhi where she was responsible for clinical, social science, and community-based research and evaluation on abortion and other reproductive health issues in Asia and North Africa. Much of that work focused on making reproductive health technologies more accessible to women and simpler to access in developing countries. Her research has been funded by NIH, CDC, USAID and private foundations.

Academic Appointments

  • Associate Professor, Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center

Administrative Titles

  • Co-Director, Global Health Certificate

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • BA, 1991 University of California at Berkeley
  • MSc, 1996 Harvard School of Public Health
  • PhD, 2004 Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Committees, Societies, Councils

Investigator, HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies

Honors & Awards

Best Poster Award, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, 1997

Best Scientific Presentation Award, National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting, 1998

Research

Research Interests

  • Biostatistical Methods
  • Child and Adolescent Health
  • Global Health
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Maternal and Reproductive Health

Selected Publications

Batya Elul, Kara Wools-Kaloustian, Yingfeng Wu, Beverly Musick, Harriet Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha, Denis Nash, Samuel Ayaya, Elizabeth Bukusi, Pius Okong, Juliana Otieno, Deo Wabwire, Andrew Kambugu and Constantin Yiannoutsos. Untangling the relationship between antiretroviral therapy use and incident pregnancy: A marginal structural model analysis using data from 47,313 HIV-positive women in East Africa. Journal of Acquired Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS) 2016; 72(3):324-32.

Susie Hoffman, Yingfeng Wu, Harriet Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha, Denis Nash, and Batya Elul. Advanced disease at enrollment in HIV care in four sub-Saharan African countries: change from 2006 to 2011 and multilevel predictors in 2011. AIDS 2014; 28(16):2429-38.

Sarah Kulkarni, Susie Hoffman, Tsigereda Gadisa, Zenebe Melaki, Mesganaw Fantehun, Muluneh Yigzaw, Kavita Misra, Wafaa El-Sadr, Robert Remien, Olga Tymejczyk, Denis Nash, and Batya Elul. Identifying gaps in the HIV care continuum: Findings from a mixed methods study at four health facilities in Ethiopia. Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care 2015.

Batya Elul, Maria Lahuerta, Fatima Abacassamo, Matt Lamb, Laurence Ahoua, Molly McNairy, Maria Tomo, Antonio Mussa, and Ilesh Jani. A combination strategy for enhancing linkage to and retention in HIV care among adults newly diagnosed with HIV in Mozambique: Study protocol for a site-randomized implementation science study. BMC Infectious Diseases 2014; 14(1):549.

Matthew Lamb, Harriet Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha, Ruby Fayorsey, and Batya Elul. High attrition before and after ART initiation among youth (15-24 years of age) enrolled in HIV care. AIDS 2014; 28(4):559-68.

Batya Elul, Harriet Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha, Paulin Basinga, Veronicah Mugisha, Jules Mugabo, Deborah Horowitz, Chitou Bassirou, Celestine Nyagatare, Parfait Uwaliraye, Vincent Mutabazi, Denis Nash, Eugenie Kayirangwa, Richard Clive, and Anita Asiimwe. High levels of adherence and viral suppression in a nationally representative sample of HIV-infected adults on antiretroviral therapy for 6, 12 and 18 months in Rwanda. PLoS One 2013; 8(1):e53586.

Batya Elul. Determinants of induced abortion: An analysis of individual, household and contextual factors in Rajasthan, India. Journal of Biosocial Science 2011; 43:1-17.

Batya Elul. Assessments of the importance of provider characteristics for abortion care: Data from women in Rajasthan, India. Health Care for Women International 2011; 32:1-23.

Batya Elul, Therese Delvaux, Elevanie Munyana, Maria Lahuerta, Deborah Horowitz, Felix Ndagije, Dominique Roberfroid, Veronicah Mugisha, Denis Nash, Anita Asiimwe. Pregnancy desires, and contraceptive knowledge and use in prevention of mother-to-child transmission clients in Rwanda. AIDS 2009; 23(S1):S19-S26.

Batya Elul, Selma Hajri, Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, Charlotte Ellertson, Claude Ben Slama, Elizabeth Pearlman, and Beverly Winikoff. Can women in less-developed countries use a simplified medical abortion regimen? Lancet 2001; 357:1402-1405.

Global Health Activities

Engage4Health: An Implementation Science Study, Mozambique: This is a USAID-funded site cluster-randomized implementation science study at 10 health facilities in Mozambique to evaluate the effectiveness of a combination intervention package to improve linkage and retention to HIV care following diagnosis.

International Epidemiological Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA): East Africa Region, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda: This NIH-supported multi-center cohort study brings together data from >50 HIV care and treatment sites in multiple countries to examine key clinical and operational issues surrounding scale-up of services in East Africa.