Helen Nabwera

Helen is an awardee of the prestigious UK Medical Research Council (MRC)/Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office African Research Leader award (2020). Her research focuses on evaluating interventions to improve growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes among small vulnerable newborns in impoverished communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This involves co-designing and testing innovative strategies that integrate early child nutrition with maternal well-being — both among those hospitalised and post-discharge — to reduce morbidity and mortality among these at-risk infants.

I conduct clinical trials in child health. My ARL fellowship project, seeks to address the gap in the post-discharge care of low birthweight infants in rural Kilifi, County in Kenya, by evaluating a mother-to-mother peer support strategy, to inform the design of a community-based cluster randomised trial. I am also a co-principal investigator of a pragmatic multi-country African newborn care trial that seeks to reduce in-hospital mortality of very preterm/very low birthweight infants (PRETERM Africa study) by evaluating the implementation of a bundle of low-cost respiratory support interventions across four African countries: Kenya, Central African Republic, Nigeria and Ghana. In addition, I am a co-investigator on a recently funded UKRI NEWS-HEAT pragmatic trial to evaluate the effect of implementing a bundle of evidence-based interventions on the thermal care of preterm/low birthweight infants in labour wards, across >15 newborn care units in Kenya.

I am a co-founder of the African Neonatal Nutrition Network with health care practitioners, nutritionists, and researchers from across 10 newborn care units in Africa and the UK, and a growing membership. The overall aim of the network is to generate evidence for nutrition and other key interventions to improve the outcomes of hospitalised very preterm/very low birthweight infants in Africa.

I also actively contribute to mentorship programmes for Women Scientists, most notably being the Aga Khan University-Oxford University Supporting Women in Science programme