Gaetano Marrone

Gaetano Marrone

Affiliated to Research | Docent
Visiting address: Widerströmska huset Tomtebodavägen 18 A, plan 3, 17165 Solna
Postal address: K9 Global folkhälsa, K9 GPH Stålsby Lundborg, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • On leave of abscence from April 2021 until April 2022.
    Gaetano is associate professor in Global Health, employed at the
    Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and
    at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm
    County Council. Gaetano has a PhD in Public Health (2010) from the University
    of Pavia (Italy), and a Master degree in Statistical and Economical Sciences
    (Faculty of Economics, University of Bari, Italy).
    His main areas of research are HIV/AIDS epidemiology and antibiotic use and
    resistance. He has extensive collaborations with Public Health England,
    Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, ECDC (European Center for
    Disease Control), AMREF (African Medical and Research Foundation) Kenya,
    AMREF Tanziania, R.D. Gardi Medical College (Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India),
    Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai, India), Makerere University
    (Kampala, Uganda) and National Centre for AIDS and STD Control (Kathmandu,
    Nepal).
    Since 2009 he is the course leader for the Research Methodology course,
    Master in Global Health, and since 2012 also lecturer for KI’s Master in
    Public Health track Epidemiology. The topics of these courses include
    epidemiology, study design, sampling methods, data management and
    biostatistics. Moreover, he has organised several data management training
    courses in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. He has published more than 50
    scientific papers.

Research

  • I am the Principal Investigator of a project regarding Incidence and risk
    factors of cardiovascular diseases amongst people living with HIV in Sweden:
    a retrospective cohort study.
    I am also involved in on-going collaborative projects in India, China,
    Uganda, Nepal, Ethiopia and Sweden. Being a biostatistican by training, I
    focus mainly on the research methodology part (study design, sampling
    methods, sample size calculation, statistical analysis, scientific writing
    and manuscript revisions).
    In India, I am involved in the Antibiotics prescription part of APRIAM study.
    The aim is to analyze the antibiotic prescribing in two tertiary
    care, private sector hospitals, one teaching and one non-teaching.
    It is an ongoing study where the antibiotics prescribed to the patients
    admitted in two Indian tertiary care hospitals is being followed since 2007.
    In China, I am involved in two main projects:
    - IMPACT: a One Health project investigating antibiotic use and resistance in
    a rural area of China, and finding ways to improve the situation. It is a
    joint collaboration between institutions in China and Sweden, and has
    received five years of funding from the National Natural Sciences Foundation
    of China and the Swedish Research Council
    - Collaboration between Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine and
    Karolinska Institutet under the theme ’Prevention, control and treatment of
    infections and other diseases’. The planned research topics are:
    1) Evaluation of an exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation program for
    patients with chronic heart failure in China.
    2) Infection-related hospitalizations in Chinese patients with chronic
    disease.
    Efficacy and Safety of Sanfu Herbal Patch at Acupuncture points for
    Persistent Allergic Rhinitis (SPAR): a randomized controlled clinical trial.
    3) Efficacy and costs of Chinese herbal medicine for flu A H1N1.
    In Uganda, I am involved in a project on Innovations in the health system and
    interventions for improved treatment of infectious diseases in children in
    rural Uganda. The aim is to find better diagnostics and algorithms for
    increased quality of care, rational use of medicines and minimized
    antimicrobial resistance.
    In Nepal, I am involved in a projects studying effectiveness of HIV
    preventive interventions at population-level among vulnerable young
    populations (men who have sex with men, female sex workers, people who inject
    drugs and migrants).
    In Ethiopia, I am involved in two projects:
    1) Developing & evaluating a predictive model from routinely used
    immunological, hematological, & clinical parameters to be used as a screening
    tool for Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART) failure.
    2) Molecular evolution of HIV-1 subtype C and its impact in therapeutic
    response.
    I am also involved in a number of other projects in Sweden, about:
    - Antibiotics use, knowledge and attitude
    - Patients´ treatment satisfaction with health and care within the Swedish
    Cohort InfCareHIV
    - Incidence of HPV induced cancer in HIV infected patients in Sweden.
    - Assigning probable country of HIV acquisition among adults born abroad
    based on estimation CD4 cell decline and CD4 cell count at HIV
    sero-conversion among HIV sero-convertors.
    Since 2009 I am the course leader for the Research Methodology course, Master
    in Global Health, and since 2012 also lecturer for KI’s Master in Public
    Health track Epidemiology.

Teaching

  • Typically, my learning activities include lectures, group work and practical
    sessions.
    Morning lectures are generally theoretical lectures of 3.5 hours with the use
    of power point presentations and white board, with the main aim of providing
    at least factual knowledge while in the afternoon students are required to
    apply and interpret the concepts taught during the morning session, with
    practical exercises and the use of the statistical software SPSS (3 hours).
    Moreover, I use to arrange group activities dividing the students in 6 groups
    of around 6-7 students each. Groups are based according to the free choice of
    the students on reading published papers on qualitative, cross-sectional,
    case-control, cohort, and ecological or randomized controlled trial design.
    Towards the end of the course each group prepares a presentation where they
    summarize the study and try to critically discuss with me the paper they have
    chosen (strengths and limitations, what they would have done different if
    they were the PI of the project etc). The audience participate actively as
    well commenting and asking questions. This is a good way to practically show
    the students how much now they are able to read, understand, interpret and
    even criticize others pieces of work.
    Even though the group work is not evaluated officially, it creates the basis
    for me for a self-assessment of what the students have learned during the
    course.
    The examination consists in a written exam with 24 questions, some with
    multiple choices, some open-ended questions and some questions were
    calculations are needed. While preparing the official assessment, I try to
    align it to the course content and the syllabus and to use the assessment to
    evaluate the course content. At the end of the course students are asked to
    evaluate the course and how they feel the course have been useful for them.
    They are also asked what they have liked and not liked, and what their
    recommendations are in order to improve the course in the future.
    I dedicate around 20% of my full-time employment to teaching activities. I
    have been teaching statistics the first cycle education outside KI (Bachelor
    degree in Medicine and Bachelor degree in Biotechnology, Medical University
    of Pavia, Italy); I have been teaching Research methodology within
    second-cycle education (Master´s) at KI (mainly Masters´programme in Global
    Health and Public Health Sciences), and within second-cycle education
    (Master´s) in another HEI (Course in Biostatistics, Master in Medicine,
    Medical University of Pavia). Moreover, I have been involved in several
    workshops and teaching exchange programs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and
    China. I am also involved extensively in supervision of master thesis and
    evaluation of master thesis: so far, more than MSc students have completed
    their thesis under my supervision and I have evaluated around 10 master
    theses.

Articles

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Employments

  • Affiliated to Research, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2025-2028
  • Researcher, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2018-2025

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2017

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