This inaugural lecture for the Takeda Chair in Global Child Health will review insights about the interconnectedness and multisectoral nature of Global Child Health. Over the last 40 years, Professor Debra Jackson has worked across maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition in the Pacific Islands, USA, Africa and Asia. Time and again the same themes have reoccurred in her work in Global Child Health, including social determinants of health and the importance of communities.
Using a Life Course approach we need to focus on multisectoral action and social determinants of health, based in communities and the empowerment of families. Research and data for maternal and child health programmes must support work on the frontlines of primary health care for women, children and families. Embedded implementer-led research, digital health and local data use are a few of the potential vehicles to ‘Decolonise Global Health’ and facilitate local leadership. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals we must embrace the old phrase ‘Think Global, Act Local’.
Speaker
Professor Debra Jackson joined LSHTM as the Takeda Chair in Global Child Health and Deputy Director of the MARCH Centre in August 2020. Previously Professor Jackson held the position of Senior Health Advisor and Chief of the Implementation Research and Delivery Science Unit, Health Section, UNICEF, which focuses on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health programme research, data and digital health. She also holds an appointment as an Extraordinary Professor in Public Health at the School of Public Health (SoPH), University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. She has qualifications in nursing, public health, epidemiology and biostatistics.