Bolajoko Olubukunola Olusanya

Last updated
Bolajoko Olubukunola Olusanya
NationalityNigerian
AwardsAram Glorig Award
Scientific career
Fields Paediatrics
Social entrepreneurship
Thesis Infant hearing screening models for the early detection of permanent childhood hearing loss in Nigeria  (2008)

Bolajoko Olubukunola Olusanya is a Nigerian paediatrician and social entrepreneur. She is a specialist in audiological medicine.

Contents

Early life

Olusanya has congenital mid-frequency hearing loss, but was not diagnosed until she was 33. She studied medicine at the University of Ibadan, graduating in 1982. She then trained as a paediatrician at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and the Donald Winnicott Centre, both in London. After she completed her training in Nigeria, she faced a choice between either following a purely academic career or becoming a social entrepreneur, deciding to take the latter path. [1]

Career

Olusanya launched Hearing International Nigeria (HING) in 1999. She later formed the Nigerian Dyslexia Association and then combined it with HING into the Centre for Healthy Start Initiative in 2011. Between 2003 and 2007, she went back to University College London to work on a PhD in paediatrics and audiological medicine. [1] Her PhD, awarded in 2008, was entitled "Infant hearing screening models for the early detection of permanent childhood hearing loss in Nigeria". [2] As of 2020, Olusanya had published over 200 articles in academic journals. [3] In 2019, she joined the Lancet Commission for Global Hearing Loss, a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative to treat deafness globally. [4] According to Olusanya, the main causes of hearing loss in Nigeria were electricity generators, prescription antibiotics and the continual presence of noise. [5]

Olusanya is a director of Global Research on Developmental Disabilities Collaborators (GRDDC), a group of paediatric experts funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In 2018, it published research in The Lancet demonstrating that in Nigeria there were 2.5 million children with developmental disabilities in 2016, as opposed to 1.5 million in 1990. Developmental disabilities are defined as health conditions which affect children long-term, such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and hearing loss. [6]

Selected works

Accolades

Olusanya was awarded the Aram Glorig Award by the International Society of Audiology in 2018. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hearing loss</span> Partial or total inability to hear

Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken language, and in adults it can create difficulties with social interaction and at work. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent. Hearing loss related to age usually affects both ears and is due to cochlear hair cell loss. In some people, particularly older people, hearing loss can result in loneliness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaws</span> Medical condition

Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones, and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pertenue. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, 2 to 5 cm in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulcer. This initial skin lesion typically heals after 3–6 months. After weeks to years, joints and bones may become painful, fatigue may develop, and new skin lesions may appear. The skin of the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet may become thick and break open. The bones may become misshapen. After 5 years or more, large areas of skin may die, leaving scars.

Obstetrical bleeding is bleeding in pregnancy that occurs before, during, or after childbirth. Bleeding before childbirth is that which occurs after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Bleeding may be vaginal or less commonly into the abdominal cavity. Bleeding which occurs before 24 weeks is known as early pregnancy bleeding.

A delayed milestone, which is also known as a developmental delay, refers to a situation where a child does not reach a particular developmental milestone at the expected age. Developmental milestones refer to a collection of indicators that a child is anticipated to reach as they grow older.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African meningitis belt</span> Region of Africa with high rate of incidence of meningitis

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">General movements assessment</span>

A general movements assessment is a type of medical assessment used in the diagnosis of cerebral palsy, and is particularly used to follow up high-risk neonatal cases. The general movements assessment involves measuring movements that occur spontaneously among those less than four months of age and appears to be most accurate test for the condition.

Nora Ellen Groce is an anthropologist, global health expert and Director of the Disability Research Centre at University College London. She is known for her work on vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries and in particular for her work on people with disabilities in the developing world. Her doctoral dissertation, published by Harvard University Press in 1985, Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard, is considered a classic work in the disability studies and ethnographic literatures.

An audiologist, according to the American Academy of Audiology, "is a person who, by virtue of academic degree, clinical training, and license to practice and/or professional credential, is uniquely qualified to provide a comprehensive array of professional services related to the prevention of hearing loss and the audiologic identification, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of persons with impairment of auditory and vestibular function, and to the prevention of impairments associated with them."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry M. McGovern</span> American public health official and scholar

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oriol Mitjà</span> Catalan researcher

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diabetes in India</span>

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Kathryn Maitland is a British paediatrician who is professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, director of the ICCARE Centre at the Institute of Global Health Innovation and an Honorary Fellow at Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit, University College, London. Since 2000 she has been based at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, in Kilifi, Kenya.

Karen Simmer is an Australian paediatrician and professor of Newborn Medicine at the University of Western Australia and is director of two neonatal intensive care units at hospitals in Perth. She also runs the WA Human Milk Bank and is team leader, neonatal gut health, nutrition and development at the Telethon Kids Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu</span> Ugandan Mental health programme developer

Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu is a professor, researcher, epidemiologist and psychiatrist at the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere University in Uganda. Her research is particularly focused on supportive group psychotherapy as a first-line treatment for depression in people with HIV. She is one of only five recipients of the Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World in Biological Sciences, as well as listed at one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2020.

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Penny M. Heaton is an American physician who is the Global Therapeutics Lead for Vaccines at Johnson & Johnson. She previously worked at Novavax, Novartis and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She was included by Stat News on their definitive list of leaders in the life sciences in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Krishnamurthi</span> Epidemiologist in New Zealand

Rita V. Krishnamurthi is a New Zealand academic, and since 2023 is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in the epidemiology of stroke and dementia.

Pratibha Singhi is an Indian pediatric neurologist. As the first pediatric neurologist in the country, she built the fields of pediatric neurology and neurodevelopment there. She is head of pediatric neurology at Amrita Hospital, Faridabad. Formerly she was director of pediatric neurology and neurodevelopment at Medanta, and chief of pediatric neurology and neurodevelopment in the department of pediatrics, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Bolajoko Olusanya: personal challenges, public health". Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 97 (10): 652–653. 1 October 2019. doi: 10.2471/BLT.19.031019 (inactive 5 December 2024). PMC   6796670 . PMID   31656329.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)
  2. Olusanya, Bolajoko Olubukunola (31 January 2008). "Infant hearing screening models for the early detection of permanent childhood hearing loss in Nigeria". UCL. UCL (University College London). Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  3. "Bolajoko Olusanya (0000-0002-3826-0583)". Orcid. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  4. "Prof. Ricardo Bento is invited to integrate the OMS/Lancet Commission for Hearing Loss". www.fm.usp.br. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  5. "Expert: Electricity generators, major cause of hearing loss in Nigeria". Today. 22 June 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  6. "Study Shows Children with Developmental Disabilities on the Rise in Nigeria". This Day Live. 6 September 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2020.