Dr Siyanai Zhou is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR), University of Cape Town. His work focuses on applying advanced statistical methodologies to improve long-term health outcomes, such as ART adherence, viral suppression, and mortality, among adolescents and young people. Â
Dr. Zhou was a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he collaborated with Professor Lucie Cluver (Nuffield College) and Professor Seth Flaxman (Department of Computer Science, Machine Learning and Global Health Network). During the fellowship, he focused on conceptualising and exploring the use of Bayesian hierarchical models and statistical machine learning techniques to assess how infectious disease outbreaks, particularly cholera, affect the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Africa.
Dr Zhou holds a PhD in Public Health from the School of Public Health and an MPhil in Demography from the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town (UCT). His thesis involved the use of group-based trajectory modelling (GBTM) to investigate longitudinal patterns of adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART) among adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV). Integrating social science data from a cohort of ALHIV with their routinely collected clinical records enabled him to identify distinct patterns of ART adherence over time and to analyse how psychosocial and structural factors shape these trajectories and related treatment outcomes.
