Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Research Interests
Maternal and Child Health; Newborn growth and survival; Probiotics; Pneumococcus; Nutrition.
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education:
MSc, McGill University, Canada. 2021
Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Canada. 2018
MD (Pediatrics), B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal. 2012
MBBS, St. John's Medical College, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore, India. 2008
Dr. Mehta is an Assistant Scientist at the Department of International Health. He is a pediatric infectious disease specialist with a focus on infectious disease epidemiology and maternal and child health, particularly in low- and middle-income country settings. He is currently collaborating with the WHO and colleagues in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia on two new projects investigating probiotic use in newborns and children in low- and middle-income settings. He is also a co-investigator several WHO-led multi-country studies, including randomized controlled trials and implementation research studies at the Projahnmo Research Foundation field sites in Dhaka and Sylhet, Bangladesh, aiming to optimize outcomes related to newborn health. He was recently invited to serve on a global panel tasked to develop pediatric specific SPIRIT and CONSORT guidelines.
Honors & Awards
2021: Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (CACMID) Poster Award for the best poster presented at the Annual conference of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases - Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (AMMI-CACMID), April 2021.
2018: Alan Ross bursary award, Department of Pediatrics, McGill University, Canada.
Select Publications
Selected publications
Mehta K, Mukherjee SG, Bhattacharjee I. et al. Functional integration of services during the antenatal period can potentially improve childhood growth parameters beyond infancy: findings from a post-interventional follow-up study in West Bengal, India. BMC Nutr 10, 112 (2024).
Mehta K, Morris SK, Bettinger JA, Vaudry W, Jadavji T, Halperin SA, Bancej C, Sadarangani M, Dendukuri N, Papenburg J; Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program Active (IMPACT) Investigators. Antiviral Use in Canadian Children Hospitalized for Influenza. Pediatrics. 2021 Sep 21:e2020049672. doi: 10.1542/peds.2020-049672.
Mehta K, Zodpey S, Banerjee P, Pocius SL, Dhaliwal BK, DeLuca A, Bhattacharya SD, Hegde S, Sengupta P, Gupta M, Shet A. Shifting research priorities in maternal and child health in the COVID-19 pandemic era in India: A renewed focus on systems strengthening. PLoS One. 2021 Aug 12;16(8):e0256099. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256099. PMID: 34383861; PMCID: PMC8360530.
Reller ME, Mehta K, McCollum ED, Ahmed S, Anderson J, Roy AD, Chowdhury NH, Saha S, Moulton LH, Santosham M, Baqui AH. Viral Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infections (ALRI) in Rural Bangladeshi Children Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2024 Dec;18(12):e70062.
Mehta K, Bhatta NK, Majhi S, Shrivastava MK, Singh RR. Oral zinc supplementation for reducing mortality in probable neonatal sepsis: a double-blind randomized placebo controlled trial. Indian Pediatr. 2013 Apr; 50(4):390-3.