Bio

Christine Ngaruiya, MD, MSc, DTM&H is an Associate Professor in the Stanford Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM), and the Population and Global Health Research Director for the department.

Previously she was on faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM) at Yale University. She completed the Global Health and International Emergency Medicine fellowship in the Yale DEM in 2015, while also matriculating with a Master of Science and Diploma in Tropical Medicine and International Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests center on: noncommunicable diseases, barriers to care, community-based participatory research and implementation science with a particular focus on Africa.

Some past honors include: the Emergency Medicine Resident’s Association (EMRA) Augustine D’Orta Award for outstanding community and grassroots involvement, Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance Associate and the 2014 Harambe Pfizer Fellow Award for social entrepreneurship, the 2016 University of Nebraska Outstanding International Alumnus award, the 2018 Young Physician award of the Global Emergency Medicine Academy at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, the 2019 Yale School of Medicine Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine for clinical excellence and compassionate care, being selected as 1 of 30 WomenLift Health Women Leaders in Global Health in 2021, 1 of 25 US Schmidt Futures International Strategy Forum fellows in 2023, and as 1 of 100 National Academy of Sciences US-Africa Frontiers in STEM fellows in 2024.

She has held several national and international leadership positions including with: the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) as current co-chair of the Research Committee (2024-2026), the African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) and WomenLift Health. She was also a founding member of the Yale Network for Global Noncommunicable Disease (NGN). Her work has been funded by Yale University, the NIH (top 100 in Emergency Medicine), Gates Foundation, World Bank, USAID, the American Psychiatric Association, among others. She has served on a number of NIH panels related to global NCD topics, and has lectured both nationally and internationally on the same.

She is the global NCD section editor for PLOS Global Public Health, and also a fervent writer in the non-traditional sphere on global NCDs. To that end, she was selected as one of twenty Yale Public Voice Fellows for 2015-2016 from across campus with more than 20 publications in outlets such as Time, Huffington Post, Medium, and The Hill on the topic.

Clinical Focus

  • Emergency Medicine

Academic Appointments

Honors & Awards

  • Case and Photo Competition Awardee, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (2014)
  • HEA Associate (1 of 30 selected internationally) for social entrepreneurship in Africa, Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance (HEA) (2014)
  • Harambe Pfizer Fellow Award (1 of 2 internationally), Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance (HEA) (2014)
  • Top Ten Poster Award, African Congress of Emergency Medicine, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2014)
  • Yale Public Voices Fellow (1 of 20 faculty selected from across campus), The OpEd project (2015)
  • Outstanding International Alumnus, Nebraska Alumni Association (2016)
  • Young Physician award, Global Emergency Medicine Academy (GEMA), Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) (2018)
  • Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, Yale School of Medicine (2019)
  • Outstanding teaching faculty of the year, APP residency, Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine (2020)
  • WomenLift Health Women Leaders in Global Health Journey (1 of 25 women selected nationally), Stanford University/ Gates Foundation (2020)
  • Outstanding teaching faculty of the year, Emergency Medicine residency, Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine (2022)
  • Top Poster Award, Stanford Research Park Annual Symposium, Palo Alto, California (2023)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Fellow, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (2024 - Present)
  • Fellow, Stanford King Center on Global Development (2024 - Present)

Professional Education

  • Fellowship: Yale School of Medicine Dept of Emergency Medicine (2015) CT
  • Board Certification: American Board of Emergency Medicine, Emergency Medicine (2014)
  • Residency: Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill Emergency Medicine Residency (2013) NC
  • Medical Education: University of Nebraska College of Medicine (2010) NE

Contact

  • Academic
    cngaruiy@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Emergency Medicine - Adult Clinical/Academic Position: Associate Professor - University Medical Line
  • Clinical (Primary)  Stanford Adult Emergency Department 1199 Welch Rd Palo Alto, CA 94304 (650) 721-3448 (fax)

Additional Clinical Info

Additional Info

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • The era of no review: an appraisal on transparency in global health funding. The Lancet. Global health Ngaruiya, C., Omolo, C. 2025; 13 (2): e194-e195

    View details for DOI 10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00485-6

    View details for PubMedID 39890220

  • Identification of Gender Differences in Acute Myocardial Infarction Presentation and Management at Aga Khan University Hospital-Pakistan: Natural Language Processing Application in a Dataset of Patients With Cardiovascular Disease. JMIR formative research Ngaruiya, C., Samad, Z., Tajuddin, S., Nasim, Z., Leff, R., Farhad, A., Pires, K., Khan, M. A., Hartz, L., Safdar, B. 2024; 8: e42774

    Abstract

    BACKGROUND: Ischemic heart disease is a leading cause of death globally with a disproportionate burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Natural language processing (NLP) allows for data enrichment in large datasets to facilitate key clinical research. We used NLP to assess gender differences in symptoms and management of patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) at Aga Khan University Hospital-Pakistan.OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to use NLP to assess gender differences in the symptoms and management of patients hospitalized with AMI at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan.METHODS: We developed an NLP-based methodology to extract AMI symptoms and medications from 5358 discharge summaries spanning the years 1988 to 2018. This dataset included patients admitted and discharged between January 1, 1988, and December 31, 2018, who were older than 18 years with a primary discharge diagnosis of AMI (using ICD-9 [International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision], diagnostic codes). The methodology used a fuzzy keyword-matching algorithm to extract AMI symptoms from the discharge summaries automatically. It first preprocesses the free text within the discharge summaries to extract passages indicating the presenting symptoms. Then, it applies fuzzy matching techniques to identify relevant keywords or phrases indicative of AMI symptoms, incorporating negation handling to minimize false positives. After manually reviewing the quality of extracted symptoms in a subset of discharge summaries through preliminary experiments, a similarity threshold of 80% was determined.RESULTS: Among 1769 women and 3589 men with AMI, women had higher odds of presenting with shortness of breath (odds ratio [OR] 1.46, 95% CI 1.26-1.70) and lower odds of presenting with chest pain (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.55-0.75), even after adjustment for diabetes and age. Presentation with abdominal pain, nausea, or vomiting was much less frequent but consistently more common in women (P<.001). "Ghabrahat," a culturally distinct term for a feeling of impending doom was used by 5.09% of women and 3.69% of men as presenting symptom for AMI (P=.06). First-line medication prescription (statin and beta-blockers) was lower in women: women had nearly 30% lower odds (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.57-0.90) of being prescribed statins, and they had 40% lower odds (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.57-0.78) of being prescribed beta-blockers.CONCLUSIONS: Gender-based differences in clinical presentation and medication management were demonstrated in patients with AMI at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. The use of NLP for the identification of culturally nuanced clinical characteristics and management is feasible in LMICs and could be used as a tool to understand gender disparities and address key clinical priorities in LMICs.

    View details for DOI 10.2196/42774

    View details for PubMedID 39705071

  • Bridging gaps in automated acute myocardial infarction detection between high-income and low-income countries. PLOS global public health Chiou, N., Koyejo, S., Ngaruiya, C. 2024; 4 (6): e0003240

    View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pgph.0003240

    View details for PubMedID 38941326

  • A proposed guide to reducing bias and improving assessments of decolonization in global health research FRONTIERS IN EDUCATION Ngaruiya, C., Muhammad, M., Sam-Agudu, N. A. 2024; 9

    View details for DOI 10.3389/feduc.2024.1233343

    View details for Web of Science ID 001249753400001

  • Self-care and healthcare seeking practices among patients with hypertension and diabetes in rural Uganda. PLOS global public health Tusubira, A. K., Ssinabulya, I., Kalyesubula, R., Nalwadda, C. K., Akiteng, A. R., Ngaruiya, C., Rabin, T. L., Katahoire, A., Armstrong-Hough, M., Hsieh, E., Hawley, N. L., Schwartz, J. I. 2023; 3 (12): e0001777

    Abstract

    BACKGROUND: Implementing effective self-care practices for non-communicable diseases (NCD) prevents complications and morbidity. However, scanty evidence exists among patients in rural sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We sought to describe and compare existing self-care practices among patients with hypertension (HTN) and diabetes (DM) in rural Uganda.METHODS: Between April and August 2019, we executed a cross-sectional investigation involving 385 adult patients diagnosed with HTN and/or DM. These participants were systematically randomly selected from three outpatient NCD clinics in the Nakaseke district. Data collection was facilitated using a structured survey that inquired about participants' healthcare-seeking patterns, access to self-care services, education on self-care, medication compliance, and overall health-related quality of life. We utilized Chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses to discern disparities in self-care practices, education, and healthcare-seeking actions based on the patient's conditions.RESULTS: Of the 385 participants, 39.2% had only DM, 36.9% had only HTN, and 23.9% had both conditions (HTN/DM). Participants with DM or both conditions reported more clinic visits in the past year than those with only HTN (P = 0.005). Similarly, most DM-only and HTN/DM participants monitored their weight monthly, unlike those with only HTN (P<0.0001). Participants with DM or HTN/DM were more frequently educated about their health condition(s), dietary habits, and weight management than those with only HTN. Specifically, education about their conditions yielded adjusted odds ratios (aOR) of 5.57 for DM-only and 4.12 for HTN/DM. Similarly, for diet, aORs were 2.77 (DM-only) and 4.21 (HTN/DM), and for weight management, aORs were 3.62 (DM-only) and 4.02 (HTN/DM). Medication adherence was notably higher in DM-only participants (aOR = 2.19). Challenges in self-care were significantly more reported by women (aOR = 2.07) and those above 65 years (aOR = 5.91), regardless of their specific condition(s).CONCLUSION: Compared to rural Ugandans with HTN-only, participants with DM had greater utilization of healthcare services, exposure to self-care education, and adherence to medicine and self-monitoring behaviors. These findings should inform ongoing efforts to improve and integrate NCD service delivery in rural SSA.

    View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001777

    View details for PubMedID 38079386

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4583-0986