Jacob Gizamba

Jacob Gizamba’s interests lie at the intersection of epidemiology, spatiotemporal patterns of infectious diseases and disease syndemics, and health equity.

While studying in the PHP program, Jacob is channeling his research efforts towards leveraging spatial and epidemiological methodologies to investigate how contextual factors influence community vulnerability to Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and access to HCV testing and treatment services, ultimately facilitating geographically targeted implementation of public health strategies for HCV elimination.

Jacob earned his B.S in Wildlife Health in 2019 from Makerere University, Uganda. He also has a master’s degree in public health, specializing in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa.

He has served as a teaching assistant for a biostatistics course within the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT. His role encompassed instructing students on fundamental biostatistics concepts, ranging from descriptive and inferential statistical methodologies to the core principles of theoretical probability distributions, hypothesis testing, and practical statistical programming using R software. Within the same department, Jacob also served as a Project coordinator for the AXA Research Chair in Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Epidemiology between February and July 2022. His work revolved around investigating the syndemics of HIV, Obesity, Hypertension, and Diabetes among pregnant women.

Master of Public Health, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Cape Town, South Africa
B.S, Wildlife Health, Makerere University, Uganda

Gizamba, JM, Finch, BK, Wang, S et al. Insights into the spatial epidemiology of hepatitis C infection: systematic synthesis of area-level determinants and spatiotemporal analyses. BMC Public Health 25, 687 (2025). (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21668-w)

Gizamba JM, Paul L, Dlamini SK, Odayar J. Incidence and distribution of human leptospirosis in the Western Cape Province, South Africa (2010-2019): a retrospective study. Pan Afr Med J. 2023 Mar 9;44:121. doi: 10.11604/pamj.2023.44.121.34244. PMID: 37275293; PMCID: PMC10237220. (https://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/44/121/full/)

Gizamba JM, Wilson JP, Mendenhall E, Ferguson L. A review of place-related contextual factors in syndemics research. Health Place. 2023 Jul 10;83:103084. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103084. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37437495. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103084)

Suboptimal Geographic Access to Hepatitis C Treatment Specialists: Urban-Rural Disparities Across Census Tracts in California: Global Hepatitis Summit (GHS) 2025, March 18th-21st 2025, Los Angeles, California, USA

APHA 2023 annual meeting and Expo (Nov. 12 – Nov.15) in Atlanta. This poster presentation is titled “HIV-HCV syndemic in California: Spatial epidemiological approach” (https://apha.confex.com/apha/2023/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/530819).

SDOH & Place Fellowship, 2025, hosted by the Healthy Regions & Policies Lab, Department of Geography & GIScience, University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign