- Assistant Professor, Global Health
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, Epidemiology

UW Office:
1959 Northeast Pacific Street, Office#: F149-A
Health Sciences Building
Box 357965
Seattle, WA 98195
United States
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Dr. Wagenaar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, and a Technical Advisor to Health Alliance International, a Center in the Department of Global Health. His work focuses on using innovative implementation science methods to answer pressing questions around improving public-sector health systems and health policies globally. He has particular interests in improving the prevention and treatment of mental illness in low-resource settings in the US and globally. In addition, he is passionate about the use of quasi-experimental designs and routine health information systems data to optimize the scale-up of complex health systems approaches globally.
He is currently PI or Co-I on a number of mental health implementation science projects in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and South Africa. As faculty in the DGH, he teaches the Advanced Global Health Evaluation Methods course (GH537) offered each spring focused on quasi-experimental designs and analyses. He has also worked to develop innovative online distance learning courses in implementation science that have, to date, trained >1,000 students from >30 countries.
- PhD (University of Washington)
- MPH (Emory University)
- BA (St. Olaf College)
- French
- Fulfulde
- Portuguese
- Biostatistics
- Burden of Disease
- Causes of Death
- Child and Adolescent Health (incl. Pediatrics)
- Child Mortality
- Chronic Disease (incl. Cardiovascular, Diabetes)
- Clinical Mentoring
- Community Health Workers
- Community-Based Participatory Research
- Community-Based Primary Health Care
- Delivery Logistics
- Disease Surveillance
- Epidemiology
- Health Disparities
- Health Financing
- Health Information Systems
- Health Interventions
- Health Outcomes
- Health Policy
- Health Policy and Advocacy
- Health Systems Strengthening and Human Resources Development
- HIV/AIDS
- Implementation Science
- Injury, Violence, Trauma and Domestic Violence
- Mental Health
- Non-Communicable Diseases
- Operations Research
- Political Economy of Health
- Quality Improvement
- Social Determinants of Health
- Social Justice and Human Rights
- Development and implementation of a demonstration project of integrated mental healthcare for HIV+ individuals with common mental disorders
- Optimizing implementation strategies of the first scale-up of a primary care psychological intervention for common mental disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Friendship Bench
- Southern African Research Consortium for Mental health INTegration (S-MhINT)-Research and capacity building consortium to strengthen mental health integration in South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania
- Spreading the Integrated District Evidence-to-Action Program for Neonatal Mortality Reduction (IDEAs) in Mozambique
- STARS-Seattle: Addressing refugee and immigrant youth mental health in the time of COVID-19 usng a digital psychological intervention
- Strengthening the identification and treatment of depression in primary care in Mozambique
- Systems analysis and improvement approach to optimize task-shifted mental health diagnosis and treatment cascades (SAIA-MH)
Wagenaar, B.H., Augusto, O., Beste, J., Toomay, S., Wickett, E., Dunbar, N., Bawo, L. Wesseh, S. (2018). Effects of the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak on Primary Health Care Delivery in Liberia: Time-series Analyses from 2010-2016. PLoS Medicine, 15(2): e1002508. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002508
Zhang, Y., Cumbe, V., Akullian, A., Augusto, O., Asbjornsdottir, K., Gimbel, S., Rao, D., Sherr, K., Wagenaar, B.H., with input from INCOMAS Study Team. (2019). Geographic distribution and determinants of mental health stigma in central Mozambique. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-019-01708-8
Fabian, K., Fannoh, J., Washington, G.G., Geneyan, W., Nyachienga, B., Cyrus, G., Hallowanger, J., Beste, J., Rao, D., Wagenaar, B.H. (2018). “My heart die in me”: idioms of distress and the development of a screening tool for mental suffering in southeast Liberia. Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-018-9581-z.
Wagenaar, B.H., Sherr, K., Fernandes, Q., Wagenaar, A.C. (2015). Using routine health information systems for well-designed health evaluations in low and middle-income countries. Health Policy & Planning. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czv029
Wagenaar, B.H., Cumbe, V., Raunig-Berho, M., Rao, D., Kohrt, B.A., Stergachis, A., Napúa, M., & Sherr, K. (2016). Outpatient mental health services in Mozambique: use and treatments. Psychiatric Services. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201500508