阿梅加, A. 科菲

I am an Associate Professor of Environmental and Nutritional Epidemiology with a strong research portfolio in nutrition and environmental health. I lead a public health research group (AmegahLab) at the Department of Biomedical Sciences with our work focused on the interface of nutritional and air pollution exposure effects on maternal, perinatal and cardiovascular health outcomes using modern and robust epidemiological and statistical methods, and also leveraging emerging data science techniques. I lead the Ghana Urban Air Quality Project (GHAir) which focuses on deploying a mixture of low cost sensors and reference grade monitors in urban areas of Ghana to provide high spatio-temporal air pollution data for bridging important data gaps, epidemiologic research and community advocacy. I also lead the Clean Air Fund (CAF)-funded Breathe Accra Project which seeks to build local capacity in air quality management and generate openly accessible hyperlocal air quality data in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area for policy decision-making. I interrogate nutrition and air pollution policy issues in Sub-Saharan Africa with my work in this area gaining a lot of media attention and influencing public health policies in the region and beyond. In recent times, my group has focused on molecular characterization of air pollution exposures to help understand the biological mechanisms mediating air pollution exposure health effects among vulnerable populations as well as the ameliorating role of nutrition (vitamin D and antioxidant nutrients specifically) in the health effects of air pollution exposure. I am a member of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and Nutrition Society UK, founding member of the AfriqAir Network, and collaborator of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) studies. I participated in the WHO expert meetings of the Global Platform on Air Quality and Health, and presently a member of the Exposure Working Group of the WHO Global Air Pollution and Health – Technical Advisory Group (GAPH-TAG). I was a member of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) & Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Africa Integrated Assessment on Air Pollution, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Group and led the chapter on “Air quality and human health in Africa”. I serve on the editorial board of Journal of Health and Pollution (Deputy Editor), Public Health Nutrition (Associate Editor), Plos Global Public Health (Academic Editor), Medicine (Epidemiology section), Environmental Epidemiology, and Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. I have 16 years teaching experience at the University level and teach courses in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Nutrition and Environmental Health.