On behalf of the entire College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (CoMUI) Community, living legends, staff, students and alumni, I congratulate Dr. Yetunde Adeniyi, MBBS, M.Sc. CAMH, FWACP (Psych.), ACCAPsych, Senior Lecturer, in the Department of Psychiatry and Centre for Child & Adolescent Mental Health, CoMUI & Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University College Hospital, the Principal Investigators, and the entire Impact of household air pollution (HAP) in-utero through early childhood on child neurocognitive development from infancy to 8 years (HAPCOG Study) team on this award.
The HAPCOG study is a collaboration work between the University of Chicago and the University of Ibadan focused on investigating the association between prenatal and early life exposure to household air pollution and longer-term impact on cognitive development and lung function in a birth cohort of children aged 2 through 8 years.
The abstract from the study received the LMIC (Low-and-Middle-Income Country) Best Abstract Award at the conference of the International Association of Environmental Epidemiology in Kaohsiung, Taiwan held from September 17 to 21, 2023.
We are absolutely delighted that the Principal Investigator of this collaboration project is a distinguished alumnus of the MBBS graduating Class of 1980, C. Sola Olopade, MD, MPH, FCCP, Professor of Medicine, Clinical Director, Center for Global Health at the University of Chicago. He had continued to partner with his alma mater in diverse ways.
Dr. Yetunde Adeniyi is the Focal Person for Neurodevelopmental disorders at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH) where she belongs to the pioneer set on the MSc CAMH programme which started with seed money from the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Higher Education grant to the University of Ibadan. She graduated with distinction focusing her research on Neurodevelopment.
For over a decade she has been working with children with different forms of mental health conditions with a special interest in developmental disorders such as autism and intellectual disorders, covering areas of treatment, research, advocacy, teaching, programme planning and implementation.
She is actively involved in training health professionals working with children and adolescents including primary care workers on the developmental module of the World Health Organization, Mental Health Gap Action programme (WHO mhGAP). She was part of the team that established child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) services in the University College Hospital, Ibadan, the largest teaching hospital in Nigeria. Due to her expertise in developmental disorders, she heads the neurodevelopment service in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry department in the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
Through CCAMH she has supervised twenty-two master’s degree projects based on research in Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Malawi, Nigeria and Ghana on child and adolescent mental health.
She is proficient in the use of psychological instruments such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), Slossans Intelligence Scale and Raven’s Progressive Matrix for the assessment of the intelligence Quotients of children, Kauffman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC II) and others. She administers these instruments especially the WISC and KABC to children with developmental disorders who present to the CAP clinic in the hospital.
I believe the collaboration between the University of Chicago and the University of Ibadan reflects the global impact of research initiatives addressing critical issues like the impact of household air pollution on the health and cognitive development of children. Dr. Adeniyi's commitment to advancing child and adolescent mental health, her leadership in neurodevelopmental research, training and service development, and her contributions to international research projects underline the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan's commitment to excellence in healthcare and research. We celebrate this achievement as a significant milestone and look forward to the continued success and impact of Dr. Adeniyi's work in shaping the future of child and adolescent mental health on a global scale.
Congratulations once again to Dr. Yetunde Adeniyi and the entire HAPCOG Study Team for this well-deserved recognition!
Olayinka Omigbodun FAS,
Provost, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan
