Olajide Williams | |
|---|---|
 Olajide Williams in 2020 | |
| Born | 1969 (age 53–54) |
| Alma mater | University of Lagos Columbia University Irving Medical Center |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
Olajide Williams (born 1969) is an American neurologist and the founder of Hip-Hop Public Health. He is Chief of Staff and Professor of Neurology at Columbia University.
Williams was born prematurely into the front seat of his mother's Volkswagen beetle, and spent most of the first year of his life in hospital. [1] As a teenager, Williams attended Haileybury College in the United Kingdom. [2] Williams trained in medicine in the University of Lagos. [3] It was in Lagos that he first became interested in public health, recognising how many people were dying from preventable diseases. [1] In an interview with the American Heart Association, Williams said that he felt "too African in England, and too English in Africa,", so instead moved to the United States. He completed his specialist training in neurology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. It was whilst working at the Harlem Hospital Center that he recognised the same public health disconnect that he had seen in Lagos related to societal inequities. [1] He subsequently earned a Master's of Public Health in 2004. [3]
After earning his graduate degree, Williams started working with the National Stroke Association (NSA) and community groups in Harlem with whom he looked to establish trusted, evidence-based public health awareness programmes. With the support from the NSA, Williams researched the effectiveness of teaching children about neurological conditions through hip hop music. [1] Whilst working at the Harlem Hospital Center Williams established the Stroke Center of Excellence. [4]
Williams founded the Hip Hop Stroke programme, a National Institutes of Health funded initiative which developed a school-based stroke education programme to teach children about stroke. [3] [5] The school programme reached 12,000 children. [6] In 2006, Williams and hip hop pioneer Doug E. Fresh launched Hip-Hop Public Health, a non-profit organisation that looks to educate people about public health issues through the lens of public health. [7] [8] Hip-Hop Public Health was offered to schools and hospitals around New York state. [9] As part of this work, Williams devised videos, cartoons and a novel stroke video game to teach school students from minority backgrounds about the risks of stroke. [10] After the training sessions, 60% of the children had perfect scores in a stroke perception test. [1] Williams also was the executive producer of Songs for a Healthier America, an album that aimed to amplify the benefits of healthier child nutritional and exercise choices. [11] Alongside his academic research, Williams looks to develop medical education programmes to promote equity and inclusion in academic medicine. [12]
During the COVID-19 pandemic Williams joined Doug E. Fresh to create a series of videos to encourage young people to wash their hands for twenty seconds or more. [13]
Williams has won several awards for his research and advocacy. In 2008 he was awarded the NAACP Community Service Award. He was selected by The Root as one of the United States' most influential African-Americans in 2012. That same year he was recognized by Fast Company Magazine as the 65th most creative person in business. [14] He was awarded the European Stroke Research Foundation Investigator award in 2017 in Berlin. [15] In 2018 he was honoured by the American Heart Association's Northeast Cerebrovascular Consortium for his work on stroke disparities in underserved communities. [16]
A transient ischemic attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke, is a minor stroke whose noticeable symptoms usually end in less than an hour. TIA causes the same symptoms associated with strokes, such as weakness or numbness on one side of the body, sudden dimming or loss of vision, difficulty speaking or understanding language, slurred speech, or confusion.
An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a cerebral aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel.
Cerebrovascular disease includes a variety of medical conditions that affect the blood vessels of the brain and the cerebral circulation. Arteries supplying oxygen and nutrients to the brain are often damaged or deformed in these disorders. The most common presentation of cerebrovascular disease is an ischemic stroke or mini-stroke and sometimes a hemorrhagic stroke. Hypertension is the most important contributing risk factor for stroke and cerebrovascular diseases as it can change the structure of blood vessels and result in atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis narrows blood vessels in the brain, resulting in decreased cerebral perfusion. Other risk factors that contribute to stroke include smoking and diabetes. Narrowed cerebral arteries can lead to ischemic stroke, but continually elevated blood pressure can also cause tearing of vessels, leading to a hemorrhagic stroke.
Kinesiology is the scientific study of human body movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, anatomical, biomechanical, pathological, neuropsychological principles and mechanisms of movement. Applications of kinesiology to human health include biomechanics and orthopedics; strength and conditioning; sport psychology; motor control; skill acquisition and motor learning; methods of rehabilitation, such as physical and occupational therapy; and sport and exercise physiology. Studies of human and animal motion include measures from motion tracking systems, electrophysiology of muscle and brain activity, various methods for monitoring physiological function, and other behavioral and cognitive research techniques.
Stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functioning properly.
Alteplase, sold under the brand name Activase among others, is a biosynthetic form of human tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA). It is a thrombolytic medication used to treat acute ischemic stroke, acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism associated with low blood pressure, and blocked central venous catheter. It is given by injection into a vein or artery. Alteplase is the same as the normal human plasminogen activator produced in vascular endothelial cells and is synthesized via recombinant DNA technology in Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO). Alteplase causes the breakdown of a clot by inducing fibrinolysis.
Douglas Davis, known professionally as Doug E. Fresh, is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines and various special effects using only his mouth, lips, gums, throat, tongue and a microphone.
Carotid artery stenosis is a narrowing or constriction of any part of the carotid arteries, usually caused by atherosclerosis.
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is one kind of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stroke. Symptoms can include headache, one-sided weakness, vomiting, seizures, decreased level of consciousness, and neck stiffness. Often, symptoms get worse over time. Fever is also common.
The modified Rankin Scale (mRS) is a commonly used scale for measuring the degree of disability or dependence in the daily activities of people who have suffered a stroke or other causes of neurological disability. It has become the most widely used clinical outcome measure for stroke clinical trials.
The Center for Cerebrovascular Research at the University of California, San Francisco is a collective of faculty and staff investigating matters related to cerebral circulation, particularly cerebrovascular disease resulting from narrowing of major blood vessels in the brain and vascular malformation of the brain. While research offices are located on Parnassus campus, San Francisco General Hospital hosts the center's laboratories and facilities. The center coordinates with additional faculty in various fields of neuroscience and vascular biology. Sponsors include the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the UCSF departments of Anesthesia, Neurological Surgery and Neurology.
Charles Miller Fisher was a Canadian neurologist whose notable contributions include the first detailed descriptions of lacunar strokes, the identification of transient ischemic attacks as stroke precursors, the identification of the link between carotid atherosclerosis and stroke, and the description of a variant form of Guillain–Barré syndrome which bears his name.
Vladimir Hachinski is a Canadian clinical neuroscientist and researcher based at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. He is also a Senior Scientist at London's Robarts Research Institute. His research pertains in the greatest part to stroke and dementia, the interactions between them and their joint prevention. He and John W. Norris helped to establish the world's first successful stroke unit at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, and, by extension, helped cement stroke units as the standard of care for stroke patients everywhere. He discovered that the control of the heart by the brain is asymmetric, the fight/flight (sympathetic) response being controlled by the right hemisphere and the rest and digest (parasympathetic) response being controlled by the left hemisphere and damage to one key component can lead to heart irregularities and sudden death. This discovery has added fundamental knowledge to how the brain controls the heart and blood pressure and lays the foundation for helping prevent sudden death.
Gbenga Ogedegbe is a Nigerian American physician who is a Professor of Population Health & Medicine at New York University. He serves as Chief of the Division of Health & Behavior and Director of the Center for Healthful Behavior Change in the Department of Population Health at the School of Medicine. His research considers health disparities and evidence-based interventions to improve the health outcomes of minority populations.
Perinatal stroke is a disease where an infant has a stroke between the 140th day of the gestation period and the 28th postpartum day, affecting up to 1 in 2300 live births. This disease is further divided into three subgroups, namely neonatal arterial ischemic stroke, neonatal cerebral sinovenous ischemic stroke, and presumed perinatal stroke. Several risk factors contribute to perinatal stroke including birth trauma, placental abruption, infections, and the mother's health. Detection and diagnosis of perinatal stroke are often delayed due to prenatal onset or inadequacy of neonatal signs and symptoms. A child may be asymptomatic in the early stages of life and may develop common signs of perinatal stroke such as seizures, poor coordination, and speech delays as they get older. Diagnostic tests such as magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalogram, and blood tests are conducted when doctors suspect the patients have developed signs of a perinatal stroke. The prognosis of this disease is associated with the severity and the development of the symptoms. This disease can be treated by anticoagulant and anticonvulsant drugs, surgical procedures, and therapeutic hypothermia, depending on the condition of the patient.
Stroke centers are medical centers having health professionals specially trained in emergency stroke care. They are considered preferred first responders in the diagnosis and treatment of strokes. Certifying authorities recognize four levels of certification, highest to lowest, as follow:
Lynda D. Lisabeth is an American epidemiologist who is Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Her research considers the epidemiology of stroke in the United States, and she has worked with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke on the advancement of stroke research.
A cerebroprotectant is a drug that is intended to protect the brain after the onset of acute ischemic stroke. As stroke is the second largest cause of death worldwide and a leading cause of adult disability, over 150 drugs tested in clinical trials to provide cerebroprotection.
Jean-Claude Baron is an Emeritus Professor of Stroke Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He has authored around 450 peer-reviewed articles.
Z Paige L'Erario is an American neurologist and writer who researches neurological and mental health outcomes in the transgender and gender diverse community. Faer writing on neurology, mental health, and LGBTQ+ healthcare has appeared in Scientific American, Neurology Blogs, Psychiatric Times, and Social Work Today.