Rate My Professor Krishtika Mala

Krishtika Mala is a PhD fellow in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. As a pharmacist and PhD candidate, she focuses her doctoral research on treatment and interventions for group A streptococcal skin infections within the END Rheumatic Heart Disease research group, led by Dr. Julie Bennett and Professor Michael Baker. She is affiliated with the HEIRU research unit, participates in the University of Otago Ethics Committee, and served as a research assistant responsible for follow-up data collection in the KneeCAPS randomised controlled trial protocol dated 2022, which evaluates community pharmacy interventions for knee osteoarthritis.

Mala's research addresses the epidemiology of bacterial skin infections, particularly their role in health disparities and links to acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. As lead author of "Epidemiology of skin infections in Auckland, New Zealand" (New Zealand Medical Journal, 2025), she analyzed 11 years of primary care skin swab data (2010–2020) from over 360,000 individuals, finding an average annual testing rate of 31.4 per 1,000 person-years. Staphylococcus aureus was common across groups, while Streptococcus pyogenes disproportionately affected children under 10 years (rate ratio 3.1), Māori and Pacific peoples (rate ratio 4.7), and the most deprived areas (rate ratio 2.1). Individuals with S. aureus were 2.1 times more likely to have S. pyogenes co-infections. Funded by the University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship, the study was conducted using data from Awanui Labs. Her subsequent lead-authored paper, "The epidemiology of repeatedly positive bacterial skin infections in Auckland children, New Zealand" (Journal of Infection, 2025), shows that an initial S. pyogenes skin infection increases the risk of recurrence fourfold, with higher risks in socio-economically deprived Māori and Pacific children under 10. Earlier, she contributed to "There’s no smoke without fire: Smoking in smoke-free acute mental health wards" (PLoS ONE, 2021), performing investigation and writing tasks based on interviews in acute psychiatric units.