Dr Camille Wittesaele
Research Project(s)
- HEY BABY
Research Interests
- Health Services & Systems Research
- Primary care
- Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health
Biography
Camille Wittesaele is a Research Fellow in the Sexual Health (including HIV) Unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. She specialises in access to health services, including HIV and non-communicable disease care, in Eastern and Southern Africa. An epidemiologist and mixed-methods researcher, she has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications in leading international journals, including The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, BMJ Open, Vaccine, AIDS and Behavior, and the Journal of the International AIDS Society.
She is a recipient of the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy Award and has led the conceptualisation of successful grant applications funded by major international donors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2025, she defended her PhD at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where her research examined engagement in routine child health services among children of adolescent mothers in South Africa.
Camille’s work is grounded in the understanding that health outcomes are shaped more by structural context and circumstance than by individual choice. She approaches global health research and practice with a problem-driven, ethically grounded perspective, with a strong commitment to generating positive impact for research participants and their communities. Over the past decade, she has worked across the research–practice continuum, combining academic research with long-term fieldwork, programme implementation, and close collaboration with local partners and stakeholders. Building on her work in maternal, adolescent, and child health, she is increasingly focused on how HIV- and maternal-child health-oriented primary care platforms can be expanded to serve other populations, including men and older or ageing adults.
Recent Publications
- Wittesaele, C., Toska, E., Cluver, L. D., Weiss, H. A., & Doyle, A. M. (2025). Factors Associated with Retention in Routine Well-Care Visits Among Children of Adolescent Mothers Living With and Without HIV: A Community-Based Study in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. BMJ Open, 15(12), e106412. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-106412;
- Wittesaele, C., Toska, E., Cluver, L., Weiss, H.A., Collins, C., Amponsah-Dacosta, E. and Doyle, A.M. Vaccine Coverage and Timeliness among Children of Adolescent Mothers: A Community-Based Study in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Vaccine 42, no. 26 (2024): 126318. DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.126318
- Little, M. T., Butchart, A., Massetti, G. M., Hermosilla, S., Wittesaele, C., Pearson, I., Jochim, J., Swingler, S., Schupp, C., Böhret, I. A., Neelakantan, L., Backhaus, S., Martin, M., Mase, M., Page, S., Janowski, R., Blackwell, A., Bernstein, K. T., Rakotomalala, S., & Cluver, L. (2025). Interventions to prevent, reduce, and respond to violence against children and adolescents: a systematic review of systematic reviews to update the INSPIRE Framework. The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, 1, 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(25)00214-7