19 Facts About Val Curtis

Valerie Ann Curtis was a British scientist who was Director of the Environmental Health Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Val Curtis applied these to hygiene and sanitation, using an approach known as Behaviour Centred Design for improvements in hygiene, sanitation, nutrition, product development and other behaviour-related problems in WASH policy.

Val Curtis undertook Masters and doctoral degrees to help her fulfil her aims.

Val Curtis was appointed as a research fellow in maternal and child epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1989 and remained there throughout her career.

Val Curtis became a lecturer in 1996 and was promoted to a professorship.

Val Curtis's interests focused on hygiene behaviour in humans from the 1990s onwards.

Val Curtis spent most of the 1990s with colleagues in Burkina Faso as co-ordinator of projects related to the risk factors for childhood diarrhea and trials of hygiene promotion publicity.

Val Curtis was among the founders of this collaboration among universities, companies that produce personal care products and international organisations that has become the Global Handwashing Partnership.

Val Curtis began to describe herself as a 'disgustologist' as an accessible name for her work.

From 2010 onwards, Val Curtis made progress in providing the theoretical framework for human reactions to excrement, which causes the emotion of disgust worldwide.

Val Curtis considered this response to have evolved for protection against the pathogens and parasites it contains and to be a very old and basic human motivation.

Val Curtis brought her ideas together in her 2013 book Don't look, don't touch: the science behind revulsion which lays out the idea that disgust is a universal human emotion and proposes how this understanding can be used to change behaviour in areas as diverse as improved hygiene and reduced prejudice and disease.

Val Curtis's ideas came together using the concept of Behaviour Centred Design that Curtis was able to develop more fully and apply to more situations from the 2010s.

Val Curtis was an advisor to governments, including in India and Tanzania, on sanitation campaigns.

Val Curtis advised the UK government during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, as a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours, on how to encourage people to adhere to recommendations.

Val Curtis is the author or co-author of over 120 scientific publications, conferences papers, books and reports.

Val Curtis followed these with a doctoral degree in the area of anthropology from Wageningen Agricultural University, Netherlands advised by Anke Niehof and Thierry Mertens, that was awarded in 1998.

Val Curtis had two children and was married to Robert Aunger.

Val Curtis was diagnosed with cancer in summer 2018, and after learning in February 2020 that it could no longer be treated, became involved in campaigning against the effects of government austerity on the UK National Health Service.