IPEN Research
Teams
India
IPEN Adolescent Research Team
Primary Investigator
Dr. R.M. Anjana
Orcid ID: 0000-0002-4843-1374
Ranjit Mohan Anjana, is the Managing Director & Consultant Diabetologist of Dr.Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre and President of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai,India. Her primary research focus is on the epidemiology and prevention of diabetes, with particular reference to the role of physical activity and dietary factors. She has also been actively involved in mhealth in the prevention of diabetes and other metabolic NCDs by reaching out to individuals with diabetes through digital platform.
Anjana is the National Co-Principal Investigator of the Indian Council of Medical Research- India Diabetes (ICMR-INDIAB) Study. This is a large epidemiological study (n=120,000), which has, for the first time, provided representative, population-based data on the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes across all of India. She is also a PI and Co-PI in international studies including PURE, NIHR, UKRI-MRC, CARRS etc. She has published over 340 papers.
Anjana is part of the IPEN since 2012. She is the Principal Investigator of the Indian site of the IPEN Adolescent study called as Be Activ India!. Anjana has led the work on development of study tools for the India component including adaptation of the Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS), an IPEN tool for assessing perceptions of the neighbourhood environment in India. She was responsible for the execution of the study in India. Anjana is currently working on manuscripts from the IPEN Adolescent study.
Research Team
Dr. Guha Pradeepa
Orcid ID: 0000-0002-4909-3733
Guha Pradeepa is the Executive Scientific Officer & Head, Department of Research Operations & Diabetes Complications at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai, India. With a broad background in nutrition and with specific training and expertise in epidemiology of diabetes and its complications and other non-communicable diseases at the University of Alabama, USA and University of Copenhagen, Denmark, she has taken up large epidemiological studies in India.
Guha Pradeepa is the PI and Co PI for several international and national projects and a recognized Guide for Ph.D at the University of Madras and Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. She is the Training Lead at MDRF for the NIHR Global Heath Research Unit and Network for Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease in South Asia funded by NIHR.She has published 195 articles in peer reviewed journals and 36 chapters in Textbooks
Guha Pradeepa joined IPEN IN 2013. She is one of the investigators of IPEN Adolescent study in India – Be Activ India! Study. She was part of the team for development of study tools for the India component. Furthermore, she was involved in the generation of the parent and child code book for the India component, during her visit to the University of California, San Diego. Guhu was also involved in the conduct of the study and management of physical activity data captured objectively using an accelerometer in India. She is currently working on manuscripts from the IPEN Adolescent study.
Dr. Ranjani Harish
Orcid ID: 0000-0002-1521-7398
H. Ranjani is the Head of the Department of Preventive and Digital Health Research at Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai. She holds a PhD in Community Nutrition from the University of Mumbai, India; is a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) and an alumna of the NIH-Fogarty fellowship on mobile health (m-health).
Her research experience lays in carrying out real-world lifestyle based randomised controlled trials and implementation science programs to prevent obesity, diabetes and CVD across school, home and worksite settings. She is also a trained qualitative and implementation science researcher and routinely includes the mixed-methods approach in all her projects. She is a co-guide and mentor to several students from both Madras University, India and Deakin University, Australia and has over 80 publications (with 2200+ citations) and an H-index of 25.
Ranjani joined the IPEN adolescent team in 2013. She is one of the co- investigators of the IPEN Adolescent team from India and coordinated the field study. Specifically, she has worked on the adaptation and validation of the Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS)- Y scale for India. She spent two weeks with the IPEN UCSD team, at San Deigo developing the code book for the NEWS-Y -India parent and adolescent scale and was also trained on the MAPS audit and supervised the standardisation of the MAPS audit in India.