Ms Magnolia Chikanya

Magnolia is a PhD candidate specialising in alcohol epidemiology, disease burden
modelling, and population health in South Africa. Using a Comparative Risk Assessment framework,
her work examines how changes in alcohol consumption patterns influence alcohol-attributable
disease burden, with particular emphasis on heavy episodic drinking. Her research aims to improve the
accuracy and policy relevance of alcohol-related harm estimates to support evidence-based public
health decision-making.
She holds an MSc in Data Science, a Postgraduate Diploma in Survey Data Analysis for Development,
and a BSc Honours in Operations Research and Statistics. Magnolia has worked on a range of public
health and development projects involving predictive modelling, machine learning, and survey analysis.
She has also worked with organisations including the Clinton Health Access Initiative and LifeTime
Consulting on research related to gender equity in the health workforce and development evaluation.
Her technical expertise includes R programming, statistical modelling, simulation, and data
visualisation.