Professor Alfred Yawson
The College of Health Sciences has organised an Inter-College Lecture at the R.S. Amegashie Auditorium, University of Ghana Business School, Legon. The Lecture which was delivered by Professor Alfred Yawson of the Department of Community Health, University of Ghana Medical School was under the topic “Obesity, a Menace to the Health of Adults in Ghana: Epidemiology and Policy Implications”.
Welcoming the audience to the lecture, the Dean of the University of Ghana Medical School, Professor Margaret Lartey noted that the lecture was a means through which the University interacts with its immediate society and informs the general public about research activities undertaken by the University in order to bring the University closer to the society it serves.
Professor Lartey stated that the rationale for the University of Ghana Inter-College Lecture Series was to create a platform for faculty members to discuss their research findings with the University community and the general public and to encourage discussions on findings of an going research which allows members of the University community and the general public to ask questions and make contributions to improve the project design.
Professor Margaret Lartey, Dean, University of Ghana Medical School
Delivering the Lecture, Professor Yawson stated that trends of obesity in low- and middle-income countries continue to increase. Obesity increases the risk of hypertension and their other non-communicable disease (NCDs) with all the related health consequences worldwide and Africa.
Professor Yawson added that obesity among adults in Ghana (18 years and older) has increased over two-folds in a decade. According to the speaker, the analysis of his study provide concrete evidence and need to intensify action across the country on the 2012 National Policy for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Disease in Ghana to shift the trajectory of factors contributing to the rise in NCDs and meet WHO’s NCD Target #7 to halt the rise in obesity and diabetes by 2025.
Professor Yawson concluded that obesity in Ghana requires structural, social and health- related policy change at national level as well as family and individual level lifestyle modifications.
Earlier, the Provost of the College, Reverend Professor Patrick F.Ayeh-Kumi, who chaired the Lecture urged faculty of the College to always be ready and willing to share their research findings so as to bring the University closer to the public it seeks to serve. He was unhappy about the low patronage of such lectures by staff. He encouraged them to show interest in the Lectures in order to make them successful.
Reverend Professor Patrick F. Ayeh-Kumi, Provost, CHS
It was the first Inter-College Lecture to be organised by the College of Health Sciences for the 2019/2020 academic year. The Inter-College Lecture was introduced by the University of Ghana when it adopted the collegiate system of governance in 2014. It replaced the Inter-Faculty Lecture of the University.
