Linda B. Mlunde

Dr. Linda B. Mlunde is a medical doctor, public health specialist, and Senior Lecturer at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Tanzania. She is an early-stage investigator building expertise in stigma research and stigma reduction interventions. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in International Health from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

To date, her research has mainly focused on HIV and drug use, including the role of stigma as a barrier to prevention and treatment services. In the past five years, Dr. Mlunde has worked on drug use stigma in HIV clinics and on adapting and testing drug use and HIV stigma measures for people who use drugs in Tanzania. Specifically, she adapted the Total Facility Approach (the health facility level intervention to be co-adapted for the proposed multi-level intervention) to reduce HIV stigma in health facilities and address drug use stigma in HIV care and treatment clinics in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – an ongoing barrier for people living with HIV who use drugs to access HIV treatment. Dr. Mlunde played a critical role in the adaptation, implementation, and testing of this intervention among healthcare workers in the HIV clinics.