Professor Adesegun Fatusi

Vice-Chancellor, University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Nigeria

Adesegun Olayiwola FATUSI is a public health physician and a Professor of Community Health at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (OAU) and Honorary Consultant Community Health Physician at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He is currently the Provost, College of Health Sciences, OAU. Prior to that, he was the Director of OAU’s Institute of Public Health (IPH). In addition, he served as the Director of Population and Reproductive Health Programme (PRHP) from 2008 to 2014. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a Technical Advisor to UNFPA-supported Reproductive Health programmes in Nigeria from 1996 to 2001. He has been playing leading roles in the field of Reproductive, Maternal and Adolescent Health, including HIV and AIDS in Nigeria for about two decades. His other areas of academic and professional interest are Programme Evaluation, Health Systems Leadership and Health Policy. He has over 100 publications to his credit.

He graduated from OAU in 1987 with Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree, and with distinction in Community Health and the Lawrence Omole Award for the best student in final year Community Health examination. In 1992, he won the Federal Government one-year abroad award for the best candidate in the Part I examinations of the Faculty of Public Health of the National Postgraduate Medical College. He graduated from the International Masters of Public Health programme of the Hebrew University, Hadassah, Israel, in 1995 with summa cum laude honours. He obtained the Fellowship of the West African College of Physicians in Community Health in April 1995. He was a Gates-Packard Scholar, Population Leadership Programme of the University of Washington, Seattle, USA between 2001 and 2002, and a Visiting Scholar at the Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA in 2007.

He has led several public health research, policy development and population-level programming at national and sub-national levels in Nigeria over the years. He was the Technical Advisor for the project under which Nigeria’s first National Reproductive Health Policy was developed. He has served as the lead consultant for the development of the several national policy documents, including the: National Policy on the Health & Development of Adolescent and Young Persons, National Policy on HIV/AIDS 2010-2015; National Strategic Framework on HIV/AIDS 2010-2015; National Policy on HIV/AIDS Research Agenda (2010); Action Plan for Advancing the Health and Development of Young People in Nigeria (2010); Revised National Reproductive Health Policy (2010); Revised National Youth Policy (2017-201); National HIV and AIDS Strategic Framework 2017-2021; Integrated National Reproductive, Maternal, and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Strategy (2017-2021); National RMNCAH Quality of Care Strategy (2017-2021). He was also a member of the team of consultants that developed the National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development, National HIV/AIDS Behaviour Change Communication Strategy 2004–2008, the National Maternal Mortality Reduction Road Map. He was a member of the Ministerial Committee that developed Nigeria’s Health Sector Reform Programme in 2004, and the Technical Working Group for the development of Nigeria’s new National Health Policy in 2016. His experience in leading national research initiatives include the National Study on School Health, Performance Factor Special Study on Reproductive and Child Health, the National AIDS & Reproductive Health Survey, and the National HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitude and Practices and School Health Survey.

He is the Chairman of Nigeria’s National Technical Working Group on Adolescent Health and Development, the President of the Society for Adolescent and Young People’s health in Nigeria (SAYPHIN), and member of the Strategic Plan Implementation Committee of the West African College of Physicians (WACP). He served previously as the Training Officer for the Faculty of Community Health of WACP, and pioneer Secretary General of the Society for Public Health. He was the pioneer Director of the International Short Course on Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Health Programmes, and also the pioneer and serving Director of the International Short Course on “Adolescent Health in Sub-Saharan Africa” Course. He is the President/CEO of Academy for Health Development (AHEAD), Ile-Ife, and CEO of Paaneah Foundation, Ota, Ogun State. He is also a member of Board of several youth-focused and health-oriented civil society organisations, including Prime Health Response Initiative, and Segun Aina Foundation. He has worked as a consultant to several international development agencies, including WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, World Bank, UNAIDS, and USAID. He has severally served as temporary Adviser to WHO Headquarters in Geneva on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health issues. He is a core facilitator for the Annual International Short Course on Adolescent Health in ow and Middle Income Countries at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and well-being, among others.