The University of Aberdeen is delighted to welcome Deputy Director General of Ghana Health Service, Dr Sam Adjei, as visiting Professor in International Health Policy. Dr Adjei has kindly accepted an invitation to come to work with the University for a nine-month period, taking valuable time off from his duties in Ghana.
Professor Adjei started off as a physician, and later moved into public health where he has worked for more than 25 years for the Government in Ghana, being responsible for research and latterly for policy, planning, and distribution of health services across the country.
Professor Adjei will be based at Foresterhill where he is working with the international research organisation, IMMPACT (Initiative for Maternal Mortality Programme Assessment). This is a significant partnership aiming to help IMMPACT‘s understanding of how to influence policy makers in their decisions on policy and investment in maternal health in developing countries.
“Policy makers are extremely busy people and seldom read international and national journals. So they tend to be unaware of the existence of research information that is critical for decision-making since these are mostly published in peer review journals.
I am hoping to convince researchers that it is just as important to communicate their findings to policy makers. As an incentive to do so, such publications should also be reviewed and should count towards the promotion of researchers”, explains Professor Adjei.
“It is tremendously valuable for us to have Professor Adjei with us for a longer period of time as it helps us in our understanding of what is a rather complex area – how to influence policy makers. No matter how excellent our research may be, if it is to benefit the people in need – in our case women in developing countries – we must align our work with those who make the decisions. It is our responsibility to ensure that they become aware of key findings and appreciate the need to use these in their policy making”, states Alec Cumming, CEO of IMMPACT.
Professor W Cairns S Smith, Head of Department of Public Health, said “The University of Aberdeen is committed to the translation of research evidence into practice in the fields of international health, development and the environment and has recently been included in the Scottish Executive's Framework Agreement on International Development focussed on Africa. It is very opportune to have Professor Adjei in Aberdeen at this time.”
In addition to his work with IMMPACT, Professor Adjei, as part of the Visiting Professors Scheme, would also be offering his insight to undergraduate and postgraduate students in other departments at the University as regards Health Systems and Policy Research. This could be through formal lectures or in seminar and tutorial groups.
Sam Adjei can be contacted on s.adjei@abdn.ac.uk or telephone: (0) 1224 559216