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Kristen Westenskow

DPhil Student

Kristen began her DPhil in Population Health in October of 2020. She is interested in health system improvement and innovation in low and lower-middle income countries.

Under the supervision of Dr Adrian Smith and Dr Chris Lavy, Kristen’s research focuses on the ways clinical quality improvement methods have been applied to health systems and particularly surgical practice in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the potential application of quality improvement in building up higher quality, lower cost health systems and a higher quality health workforce.

Significant variation in clinical practice leads to a wide range of quality of care and associated costs. Clinical quality improvement therefore, focuses on eliminating this “quality waste” by lessening variation in clinical practice.

Before coming to Oxford, Kristen spent many years developing and teaching university courses on global health topics. She recently completed Intermountain Health Care’s Advanced Training Program in Clinical Quality Improvement in the US.

Kristen received a Master of Public Health degree at Columbia University in New York and an undergraduate degree in community health and international development at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA.