Third Meeting of the DS-I Africa Consortium
3 November - 9 November 2023

Dr Kofi Adeladza Amegashi - Speaker

Leveraging Data Science Applications to Improve Children's Environmental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (DICE) (Contact PI)

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. My group also focuses on molecular characterization of air pollution exposures to help understand the biological mechanisms mediating air pollution exposure health effects among vulnerable populations, and the ameliorating role of nutrition (vitamin D and antioxidant nutrients specifically) in air pollution exposure health effects. I lead the Ghana Urban Air Quality Project (GHAir) which was established in 2019 and focuses on deploying a mixture of low cost sensors and reference grade monitors in urban areas of Ghana to bridge important air quality data gaps, and for epidemiologic research and community advocacy. I also focus on interrogating 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. I recently established a birth cohort in the Cape Coast Metropolitan Area with the primary aims of unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms, and identifying social and nutritional modifiers of household air pollution health effects. 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 am a renowned expert on air pollution and health in Africa with my views sought by both local and international media outlets on this and related issues. 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 published widely in high impact factor medical and public health journals including the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, Bulletin of WHO, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and Environment International, and have over 50 publications with an H-index of 28. I have 16 years teaching experience at the University level and teach courses in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Nutrition and Environmental Health