Udita Singh

Research & Publications

Evidence, carefully gathered

My research is organised below by theme. Each project is presented honestly: completed work, ongoing work, and work whose status is still taking shape. Publications follow, all verified, with DOI links.

Selected projects

Three projects that show the range — a completed thesis, a quality improvement initiative, and an ongoing collaboration.

Completed

Patient engagement in disease management and its association with outcomes among adults with hypertension and diabetes in rural Haryana

How engaged are adults with hypertension and diabetes in rural Faridabad, Haryana in managing their own disease, and how does engagement relate to treatment outcomes?

Role
Principal investigator (MD thesis work), Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS New Delhi.
Key finding
Findings on engagement and its determinants are published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine (2026).

Read the publication(opens in a new tab)

Completed

Improving opportunistic NCD screening through sequential PDSA cycles

Can routine opportunistic screening for non-communicable diseases be built into everyday clinic workflows at a tertiary-care community medicine setting?

Role
Quality Improvement (QI) Lead, AIIMS Bathinda.
Key finding
The initiative screened 2,252 individuals over four months.
Ongoing

MAHILA — Maternal Moderate Anemia Heuristics from Smartphone Image Learning Algorithms

Can smartphone-based image analysis support detection of moderate anaemia in mothers in low-resource settings?

Role
Co-Investigator at AIIMS Bathinda, supporting implementation and validation.
Research visual — to be added

The full collection

Organised by the questions the work asks. Open a project to read its background, role, methods and status.

Patient engagement, adherence & patient-centred care

  • Patient engagement in disease management and its association with outcomes among adults with hypertension and diabetes in rural Haryana

    CompletedMD thesis, AIIMS New Delhi, 2021–2024
    Background

    How engaged are adults with hypertension and diabetes in rural Faridabad, Haryana in managing their own disease, and how does engagement relate to treatment outcomes?

    Role

    Principal investigator (MD thesis work), Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS New Delhi.

    Methods & study design

    Mixed-methods study. Patient engagement assessed with the Patient Assessment of Care for Chronic Conditions (PACIC); treatment adherence examined with complementary measures including the Hill-Bone Compliance to High Blood Pressure Therapy Scale and pill counts. Factors associated with engagement and adherence examined through multivariable analysis, with mediation and decomposition analysis to explore pathways linking engagement to outcomes.

    Findings & status

    Findings on engagement and its determinants are published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine (2026).

    Read the publication (doi:10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_543_25)(opens in a new tab)

Primary healthcare, health systems & quality improvement

  • Improving opportunistic NCD screening through sequential PDSA cycles

    CompletedQuality improvement initiative at AIIMS Bathinda
    Background

    Can routine opportunistic screening for non-communicable diseases be built into everyday clinic workflows at a tertiary-care community medicine setting?

    Role

    Quality Improvement (QI) Lead, AIIMS Bathinda.

    Methods & study design

    Sequential PDSA cycles with workflow redesign, standardised screening forms, digital data collection and improved referral pathways.

    Findings & status

    The initiative screened 2,252 individuals over four months.

  • Increasing fasting blood glucose testing among people with diabetes at an urban health centre, New Delhi

    CompletedAccepted for publication in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine
    Background

    People with diabetes attending an urban health centre were not consistently receiving fasting blood glucose testing. Could structured quality improvement close that gap?

    Role

    Contributor to the quality improvement initiative.

    Methods & study design

    Baseline assessment, process mapping, fishbone analysis and three PDSA cycles. Interventions included priority consultation for patients arriving fasting, weekly patient-awareness discussions and improved inventory management of glucose-testing strips. Testing uptake monitored through laboratory registers, patient interviews and run charts; descriptive analysis in Stata 18.

    Findings & status

    Fasting blood glucose testing improved from a baseline of 52.6% to 84.6% during the initial intervention period. After a decline linked to testing-strip shortages, testing rose again to 51% following inventory-management interventions.

  • Improving growth monitoring at an immunisation clinic in an urban primary health centre, Delhi

    CompletedPublished in BMC Pediatrics (2025)
    Background

    Growth monitoring and growth-chart plotting among children attending an urban primary health centre needed strengthening, to better identify children at risk of malnutrition.

    Role

    Contributor to the quality improvement initiative.

    Methods & study design

    Quality improvement initiative in an urban primary health centre in Delhi.

    Read the publication (doi:10.1186/s12887-024-05373-y)(opens in a new tab)

  • Personalised health records for diabetes and hypertension

    In progress
    Background

    Designing a patient-centred personalised health-record system for patients attending an urban primary health centre.

    Role

    Designer of the health-record system.

    Methods & study design

    Design and development of a personalised health-record system.

Non-communicable diseases & prevention

  • NCD Facility Preparedness Assessment Tool (NCD-FPAT)

    Ongoing
    Background

    Development of a structured tool to evaluate non-communicable disease service preparedness across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities.

    Role

    Co-investigator in developing the assessment tool.

    Methods & study design

    Instrument development for facility-level assessment.

  • NCD risk profiling among Family Adoption Program beneficiaries

    Ongoing
    Background

    What is the burden of non-communicable diseases and their behavioural, clinical and socioeconomic risk factors among families adopted under the Family Adoption Program?

    Role

    Secondary analysis of undergraduate Family Adoption Program data.

    Methods & study design

    Secondary data analysis of Family Adoption Program records.

Maternal & population health

  • MAHILA — Maternal Moderate Anemia Heuristics from Smartphone Image Learning Algorithms

    Ongoing
    Background

    Can smartphone-based image analysis support detection of moderate anaemia in mothers in low-resource settings?

    Role

    Co-Investigator at AIIMS Bathinda, supporting implementation and validation.

    Methods & study design

    A funded collaboration between Khushi Baby and the Yale School of Public Health.

Systematic reviews & meta-analysis

  • Tuberculosis preventive treatment coverage and completion in India

    Ongoing
    Background

    What proportion of eligible people in India receive and complete tuberculosis preventive treatment?

    Role

    Systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Methods & study design

    Systematic review with meta-analysis of the coverage and completion of TB preventive treatment in India.

  • Neglected in the Countryside: mental health service gaps among rural adolescents

    Ongoing
    Background

    What barriers — individual, community, health-system and structural — limit mental health service access for rural adolescents aged 10–19 years?

    Role

    Systematic review.

    Methods & study design

    Systematic review of mental health service gaps among rural adolescents.

Ageing & social determinants of health

  • Aging in Vulnerability: elder abuse prevalence in WHO South-East Asia Region countries

    Ongoing
    Background

    What is the prevalence of elder abuse among adults aged 60 years and above across WHO South-East Asia Region countries?

    Role

    Systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Methods & study design

    Systematic review with meta-analysis of studies from SEAR countries.

Medical education research

  • Effect of gamification on learner engagement and knowledge retention in undergraduate medical teaching

    Ongoing
    Background

    Can a gamified teaching strategy improve knowledge acquisition, learner engagement and retention during routine undergraduate teaching?

    Role

    Study lead.

    Methods & study design

    Quasi-experimental study evaluating modified Pictionary as a gamified teaching strategy, with outcomes including knowledge acquisition, learner engagement and retention.

Publications

Published, peer-reviewed work. Every entry is verified; citations link to the paper via its DOI where one exists.

2026

  1. Singh U, Krishnan A, Bairwa ML, Nongkynrih B. Patient engagement in treatment and its determinants among rural Indian adults with hypertension and diabetes. Indian Journal of Community Medicine. 2026;51(3):553–559.

    doi:10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_543_25(opens in a new tab)

  2. Halder P, Bisoi S, Singh U, et al. Association of sleep disorders with current marital status among Indian population aged 45 years and above: insight from Longitudinal Ageing Study in India. Sleep Science and Practice. 2026;10:26.

    doi:10.1186/s41606-026-00182-x(opens in a new tab)

2025

  1. Halder P, Singh U, Kansal S, et al. Association of road traffic accident with sleep disturbances among Indian population aged 45 years and above: nested multilevel modelling analysis of nationally representative cross-sectional survey. Sleep Science and Practice. 2025;9:30.

    doi:10.1186/s41606-025-00153-8(opens in a new tab)

  2. Kaur R, Singh U, Srinath K, Ranjith A, Nongkynrih B. A quality improvement initiative to improve growth monitoring of children attending immunization clinic in an urban primary health centre in Delhi. BMC Pediatrics. 2025;25:39.

    doi:10.1186/s12887-024-05373-y(opens in a new tab)

2023

  1. Alwani AA, Singh U, Sankhyan S, Chandra A, Rai SK, Nongkynrih B. Hypertension-related distress and its associated factors: findings from an urban primary health centre of South Delhi, India. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care. 2023;12(9):1885–1892.

    doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_1909_22(opens in a new tab)

Accepted for publication

Final citation details to follow — deliberately not listed yet

  • A quality improvement initiative to increase the fasting blood glucose testing among people with diabetes mellitus attending an Urban Health Centre in New Delhi. Indian Journal of Community Medicine. Accepted for publication.

    Third author.

Methods & tools

The capabilities behind the projects above.

Analytical & research methods

  • Epidemiological study design
  • Logistic and linear regression
  • Structural equation modelling (SEM)
  • Mediation and decomposition analysis
  • QI analysis with run charts and PDSA cycles
  • Systematic review methodology and meta-analysis
  • Risk-of-bias assessment

Research software

Statistical analysis
Stata · Microsoft Excel / Office 365
Systematic reviews & references
Rayyan · Zotero
Qualitative research
NVivo · ATLAS.ti
Digital data collection
EpiCollect · Google Forms