Hosted by the GPH Global and Environmental Public Health Program
Dr. Prince Michael Amegbor, Assistant Professor of Global Health at NYU GPH, is a health geographer working within the overarching theme of environmental and social determinants of health and health-care-seeking behaviour. His research uses big data and a multi-methods approach to unravel environmental and socio-spatial health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa and other geographic contexts (e.g. Denmark).
The burden of childhood diseases is considerably high among children in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, the number of malnourished children in the region increased from 54.4 million in 2000 to 61.4 million in 2020 (UNICEF, WHO & World Bank, 2021). In the same period, Asia witnessed about a 58% (from 135.9 million to 79 million) decline in the number of children with stunting in the same period (UNICEF, WHO & World Bank, 2021). A recent estimate also suggests that 60.2% of children in sub-Saharan Africa are anaemic, compared to the global prevalence of 39.8% (World Health Organization, 2021). Existing studies have explored the effect of parental, individual and household factors on childhood outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. These findings of these studies show that lower socioeconomic status at individual and household levels exacerbates the risk of malnutrition and respiratory infections among children. Currently, the research on the association between air pollution exposures in early life and childhood diseases among children in the sub-Saharan Africa region is non-existent. However, clinical studies and other conceptual papers suggest plausible pathways between ambient air pollution exposure in early life and childhood health outcomes such as stunting, anaemia and acute respiratory infection.
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