Lenka Benova

Lenka Benova is a Researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, where she serves as Unit Head in Reproductive and Maternal Health. She is a quantitative population health scientist with interdisciplinary training in management, economics, Middle East studies, demography, and epidemiology. Her career includes project coordination with Médecins Sans Frontières in Nigeria, West Bank, and South Sudan, as well as leading health pillar design in Egypt's conditional cash transfer program (2008-2010).

• Education:
  • MA in Middle East studies (American University in Cairo)
  • MSc in Demography and Health (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
  • PhD in Population Health (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)

Her research focuses on health-seeking behavior in low- and middle-income countries, particularly reproductive/maternal health, with methodological interests in innovative data capture, self-reported indicator validity, and geospatial modeling. Her recent work examines maternal healthcare provision discontinuities in urban Sub-Saharan Africa through system dynamics and geospatial approaches.

She teaches on Masters course modules and supervises PhD students, contributing to projects like: modeling maternal care accessibility in Guinea, analyzing fertility transitions in DR Congo, and evaluating hospital data utility for community epidemiology. Her research appears in journals such as Bioinformatics, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, and Scientific Reports, focusing on public health, maternal care, and health equity.