Tel (65) 6903 5539
Email Qi_GAO@ncid.sg

I have keen interest in disease surveillance, risk assessment, field epidemiology, training and education. I strive to strengthen the public health and work closely with international partners to establish world-class field epidemiology and allied professional training programmes.

The COVID-19 pandemic shows us that kindness could emerge in unexpected ways during a public health crisis.

In the era of AI and Big Data, I hope our next generation of public health professionals who will become not only data savvy, but more importantly, be gracious when serving the public. “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”

• NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (Adjunct)
• National Centre for Infectious Diseases, Singapore (Primary)

• Emerging infectious diseases, Outbreak management, Pandemic preparedness

• Field epidemiology

• Ph.D, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2014
• Bachelor and Master of Medicine, Tianjin Medical University, China, 2008

• National Awards, The Commendation Medal (COVID-19), Singapore, 2022
• Bronze Award for the Best Poster Award at Singapore Health & Biomedical Conference, Singapore, 2017

• Senior Epidemiologist, National Public Health and Epidemiology Unit, National Centre for Infectious Diseases, Singapore, 2020 – Present
• Secondment, COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Epidemiology Centre, Ministry of Health, Singapore, 2021 – 2022
• Secondment, Office of Clinical Epidemiology, Analytics and Knowledge, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 2021
• Research Fellow, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2014 – 2020

• Deputy Director, Singapore Field Epidemiology Training Programme, Singapore
• Epidemiology Team Lead, National Public Health and Epidemiology Unit, National Centre for Infectious Diseases, Singapore

• Technical Advisory Scientific Committee, Training Programmes in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network
• Technical Working Group on Promoting Public Health Workforce, South Asia Field Epidemiology and Technology Network
• Editor, NCID Infectious Disease Intelligence
• Scientific Committee, Southeast Asia One Heath University Network International Conference, 2022
• Moderator, The 10^th Southeast Asia and Western Pacific Bi-regional Training Programmes in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network Scientific Conference, 2021
• Focal point of Singapore, Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium, Australia, 2014- 2020
• Co-investigator, the Singapore Longitudinal Cohort Studies, 2014 – 2020

• Metabolic Syndrome and the Risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Progression to Dementia: Follow-up of the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study Cohort. JAMA Neurol. 2016. [Impact Factor: 18.3]
• Co-occurrence of Physical Frailty and COPD and Association With Disability and Mortality: Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study. Chest. 2021. [Impact Factor: 9.657]
• Dysregulated homeostatic pathways in sarcopenia among frail older adults. Aging Cell. [Impact Factor: 9.304]
• Association of Frailty and Malnutrition With Long-term Functional and Mortality Outcomes Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Results From the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study 1. JAMA Netw Open. 2018. [Impact Factor: 8.483]
• Elderly Nutritional Indicators for Geriatric Malnutrition Assessment (ENIGMA): Development and validation of a nutritional prognostic index. Clin Nutr ESPEN. 2017. [Impact Factor: 6.402]
• A novel language-neutral Visual Cognitive Assessment Test (VCAT): validation in four Southeast Asian countries. Alzheimers Res Ther. 2018. [Impact Factor: 6.116]
• Estimating Biological Age in the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2019. [Impact Factor: 6.053]
• Systemic and Metabolic Signature of Sarcopenia in Community-Dwelling Older Adults. Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2020. [Impact Factor: 6.053]
• Prevalence of measles antibodies among migrant workers in Singapore: a serological study to identify susceptible population subgroups. BMC. 2022.
• Seroprevalence of IgG antibodies against diphtheria antitoxin among migrant workers in Singapore, 2016 – 2019. BMC Public Health. 2022.