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Catherine Kyobutungi
Catherine Kyobutungi (born 1972) is a Ugandan epidemiologist who currently serves as the Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center(APHRC)[2][3] and a Joep Lange Chair at the University of Amsterdam.[4][5] She was elected to the African Academy of Sciences in 2018.[6] Early life and educationKyobutungi was born in 1972 in Gulu in Uganda.[7] She started her medical course at Makerere University in 1990.[8] After graduating in 1996 she worked as a medical officer at Rushere Community Hospital.[9] Kyobutungi moved from clinical medicine to public health because she felt she could save more lives by correcting the African healthcare system.[10] She earned a master's degree in community health and a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg in 2002.[8] Her doctoral research was based in the Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health supervised by Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Heiko Becher.[7][11] In 2006 Kyobutungi joined the African Population and Health Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow, and was eventually selected as the Head of the Challenges and Systems research program.[9][12] After graduating Kyobutungi began to teach at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology.[9] Research and careerIn October 2017, Kyobutungi was made the Director of Research at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).[13][14] In this capacity she evaluated maternal health and well being challenges in African cities.[12][15] Kyobutungi looked to strengthen governance in local health services, as well as providing training, infrastructure and equipment.[16] Whilst African researchers in these local health centers can generate large amounts of useful health data, they often do no have the capacities to analyse it.[17] Kyobutungi has described unused African research data as being like a hippo, "at the moment we can only see and access a very small amount – like the ears of a hippo in water – but we know there is a huge potential lying just below the surface".[17] She was made of Executive Director of the APHRC in 2017.[18] Here her work has considered the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease, prevalence of diabetes in poor urban communities and ways to prevent cardiovascular diseases in Nairobi slums.[13][19] She was the inaugural Chair of the Kenya Epidemiological Association. Kyobutungi has made efforts to improve girls' access to education, including the development of community resources and trained mentors.[20]  In 2019 Kyobutungi was announced as the Joep Lange Chair, a position in which she investigates non-communicable diseases in African countries.[8] Non-communicable diseases are rising in African countries, and current healthcare systems are not equipped to treat populations affected by them.[8] The focus of foreign money and training to date has been on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which means that simple medical tests such as measuring blood pressure often get overlooked.[8] Kyobutungi supported health workers to visit local communities with blood pressure cuffs to monitor for hypertension.[21] She found that to encourage patient and doctor participation she had to include an economic incentive, offering 100 schillings for every screened patient who visits the clinic.[21] Alongside establishing a research program investigating the management of chronic diseases and ways to strengthen healthcare systems, Kyobutungi is exploring the role of digital technology in connecting patients with their healthcare systems.[8] She has studied the influence of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on tobacco legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa.[22] Kyobutungi serves on the council of the United States International University Africa.[23] She also serves as director of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), an organisation which looks to rebuild and strengthen the capacity of African universities.[24][25] She was elected to the African Academy of Sciences in 2018.[9][26] Since 2019, Kyobutungi has been a member of the Lancet–SIGHT Commission on Peaceful Societies Through Health and Gender Equality, chaired by Tarja Halonen.[27] Other activities
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