Dr Kimberly Lakin is a Senior Research Associate based within the Global Health and Ageing Research Unit at the University of Bristol. She is an experienced qualitative researcher specialising in health systems and policy research in low- and middle-income country settings. Her methodological expertise include ethnography, realist evaluation, theory developement and qualitative evidence syntheses, particularly critical interpretive syntheses.

Within the Global Health and Ageing Research Unit, Kimberly supports the ethnographic component of the FRACTURES-E3 study, a mixed methods study to understand and characterise fracture care in sub-Saharan Africa. The study is funded by the Wellcome Trust and is in collaboration with researchers across South Africa, The Gambia and Zimbabwe. She is also supporting the process evaluation of the KOSHESAI study. The study aims to develop and implement an evidence-based clinical framework for non-specialist assessment and management of chronic disorders associated with ageing that impact functional ability of older adults in Zimbabwe. 

Kimberly completed her PhD at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, at the University of Melbourne. This examined the responsiveness of the health system in Vietnam to the expectations of pregnant and childbearing women. She proposed a reframing of the concept health systems responsiveness to take into account the role of market dynamics in emerging economies. Alongside her PhD, she was a research assistant on a UKRI-funded project, RESPONSE, a collaborative realist evaluation of health systems responsiveness to the mental health-related needs of pregnant women in Ghana and Vietnam.