Our Team

Natanael Silva is a predoctoral researcher at the ISGlobal Severo Ochoa programme's Health Impact Assessment group. He is also a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation's Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS) in Brazil, where he collaborates in projects on social determinants and impact of public policies on maternal and child health and nutrition in the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort and in the CIDACS Birth Cohort.

His academic background and research experience is focused on nutrition, epidemiology and public health. Under the supervision of Dr. Davide Rasella, his doctoral work at ISGlobal is to evaluate the "Impact of the global economic recession due to COVID-19 on child and maternal health and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries".

Lines of research

• Nutritional assessment of populations
• Maternal and child health and nutrition
• Obesity and obesity-related noncommunicable diseases
• Social determinants of health and heath Inequalities
• Health impact assessment of population-based interventions

Main publications

• Silva NJ, Ribeiro-Silva RC, Ferreira A, Teixeira CSS, Rocha AS, Alves FJO, Falcão IR, Pinto EJ, Santos CAT, Fiaccone RL, Ichihara MY, Paixao ES, Barreto ML. Combined association of obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases with severe COVID-19 outcomes: a nationwide cross-sectional study of 21,773 Brazilian adult and elderly inpatients. BMJ Open. 2021; 11(8):e050739. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050739.
• Silva NJ, Ribeiro-Silva RC, Rasella D, Alves FJO, Campello T, Fiaccone RL, Barreto ML. Shifts towards overweight and double burden of malnutrition among socio-economically vulnerable children: a longitudinal ecological analysis of Brazilian municipalities. Public Health Nutr. 2020 Nov 23:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S1368980020004735.
• Silva NJ, Oliveira-Júnior AA, Raposo OFF, Silva DG, Mendes-Netto RS, Barbosa KBF. Frequency of healthy eating habits among students of a public university in northeastern Brazil. Rev. Bras. Promoç. Saúde. 2016; 29(2): 227-234. doi: 10.5020/18061230.2016.p227
• Paixao ES, Cardim LL, Falcao IR, Ortelan N, Silva NJ, Rocha ADS, Sena S, Almeida D, Ramos DO, Alves FJO, Bispo N, Ali S, Fiaccone R, Rodrigues M, Smeeth L, Brickley EB, Cabral L, Teles C, Costa MCN, Ichihara MY, Barreto ML, Silva RCR, Teixeira MG. Cohort Profile: Centro de Integração de Dados e Conhecimentos para Saúde (CIDACS) Birth Cohort. Int J Epidemiol. 2021 Mar 3;50(1):37-38. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyaa255.
• Uzêda JCO, Ribeiro-Silva RC, Silva NJ, Fiaccone RL, Malta DC, Ortelan N, Barreto ML. Factors associated with the double burden of malnutrition among adolescents, National Adolescent School-Based Health Survey (PENSE 2009 and 2015). PLoS One. 2019 Jun 14;14(6):e0218566. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218566. Erratum in: PLoS One. 2019 Jun 27;14(6):e0219315.