Tom Handzel, PhD, MSPH Lead, Global WASH Team
Emergency Response and Recovery Branch
Biography
Dr. Handzel is an epidemiologist with the Emergency Response and Recovery Branch (ERRB), Division of Global Health Protection, Center for Global Health. He leads ERRB Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) efforts with a primary focus is on the prevention of waterborne diseases in complex humanitarian emergencies.
Dr. Handzel has a PhD and MSPH from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to CDC, he worked for several non-governmental organizations on water and sanitation programs in Cambodia, Tanzania and Albania and spent two years at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Dr. Handzel joined CDC in 2000 as an EIS officer in the Division of Parasitic Diseases and has been with ERRB since 2002. He is currently the focal point for WASH in emergencies within ERRB and has worked on numerous humanitarian emergencies including the tsunami response in Indonesia, outbreaks of cholera and hepatitis E in Congo, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe and the earthquake and cholera responses in Haiti.
Areas of Interest
- Epidemiology
- Public Health Preparedness and Response
- Emergency Preparedness
Publications
- Husain F, Hardy C, Zekele L, Clatworthy D, Blanton C, Handzel T., 2015, A pilot study of a portable hand washing station for recently displaced refugees during an acute emergency in Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State, Ethiopia., Confl Health, 9
- Berendes D, Levy K, Knee J, Handzel T, Hill VR., 2015, Ascaris and Escherichia coli Inactivation in an Ecological Sanitation System in Port-au-Prince, Haiti., PLoS One
- Gelting R, Bliss K, Patrick M, Lockhart G, Handzel T., 2013, Water, sanitation and hygiene in Haiti: past, present, and future., Am J Trop Med Hyg, 89, 665–670
- Diane Morof*, Susan T. Cookson, Susan Laver, Daniel Chirundu, Sarika Desai, Penninah Mathenge, Donald Shambare, Lincoln Charimari, Stanley Midzi, Curtis Blanton and Thomas Handzel, 2013, Community Mortality from Cholera: Urban and Rural Districts in Zimbabwe, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, , 11-0696