About Nyanja

‘Nyanja’ is the Chichewa word for ‘Lake’, and our research catchment area is located between Salima town and the shores of Lake Malawi. The Lakeshore communities are made up of rural farmers, fisherfolk, and informal businessmen and women.

The Founder & Director of Nyanja is Dr. Beth Tippett Barr. She is a 3rd-generation Malawian educated in Kenya, England, and the United States. She has over 20 years of experience in public health programs and research in Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Sudan, and now brings those diverse experiences and lessons learned back to Malawi. Beth’s dream is for Nyanja Health Research Institute to significantly improve the health of Malawians by being directly responsive to the Ministry of Health’s stated data needs, providing practical insights and solutions to questions around severe disease and mortality which are not easily answered through the Ministry of Health’s routine health programmes.