Ahmed Nabil Shaaban

About me

Ahmed Nabil Shaaban, Ph.D. is a medical doctor and epidemiologist with clinical training in cardiovascular diseases. Early in his career, he obtained two postgraduate degrees in biostatistics, and healthcare and hospital management. Over the past 15 years, he gained experience in data science and quantitative methods commonly used in medical, epidemiological, and socioeconomic research such as causal inference, multilevel models, regression models, and econometrics. His research unfolds along four themes; epidemiology of infectious diseases, health inequalities, HIV/AIDS, and immigrants Health.

During his career, Dr. Nabil received several awards and scholarships including the 2016 Foundation for Science and Technology Scholarship from the Portuguese Government, the 2015 merit award from the World Bank and the government of Japan, and the 2015 Brandeis University Merit award, Massachusetts, USA. His work and published study during the COVID-19 pandemic "Are immigrants more vulnerable to the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19?" was recognized with the gold medal Human Rights Award of the Portuguese Parliament being the first comparative study in Portugal on the consequences of COVID-19 on immigrant families and Portuguese nationals in the municipality of Amadora with results being incorporated in public health programs.

Research description

In his Ph.D. thesis, he examined the use of a relatively new methodology for designing models that can assess quality indicators and health care outcomes among hospitals in Portugal (namely, 30-day readmission rate and length of stay) based on longitudinal multilevel (hierarchical) population-based studies aiming at reducing health expenditures. He assessed risk factors that can predict these healthcare outcomes using various regression techniques such as logistic regression, Poisson regression, negative binomial models, and Zero-inflated models with random-effects. These studies also considered how the variation in care provided by different hospitals affects these quality outcomes.

His Post-Doc examines the causal relation between tobacco and COVID-19 through one of the largest population-based studies among three Nordic countries. This work is part of the ongoing population-based project (Tobrisk-Cov) in Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The aim of this project is to analyze longitudinal data on the relation between smoking and COVID-19-19 from population-based samples in which each country will provide and analyze population-based cohorts during COVID-19. pandemic.

Dr. Nabil also led several studies focusing on assessing risk factors of several health outcomes using various statistical methods aiming at guiding health policy-making. Highlights of these works include comparing healthcare use and access across different groups in Portugal, including migrants; identifying a wide range of factors that can influence self-perceived health status among a representative sample in Portugal; and analyzing macro-level panel data to estimate an empirical aggregate health production function in 52 African countries with life expectancy gains as the output of the health care system and various socio-economic, environmental, and lifestyle factors as contributory factors.

Teaching portfolio

Dr. Nabil taught several postgraduate (Master and Ph.D.) courses on biostatistics, data analysis, and econometrics for public health at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT), Nova Lisboa University, Portugal.

Education

• Ph.D. in Global Public Health, Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Nova Medical School, Nova Lisboa University, Lisbon, Portugal.
• M.Sc. in International Health Policy and Management, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
• Master in Public Health, Faculty of Medicine Porto University, Porto, Portugal.