Nature Café on Advancing Health Equity Through Community Engagement

Ben trained as a virologist, starting with an undergraduate degree in virology from the University of Warwick, UK. His PhD, in influenza virus genetics and immunoevasion, was from Public Health England and the University of Reading, UK, with Maria Zambon and Wendy Barclay, and included a brief stint with Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests then moved to smallpox vaccines, viral ion channels and cell adhesion, while he was a postdoc at Imperial College London with Geoffrey Smith, FRS. Ben then joined open-access publisher BioMed Central in 2011 as an editor and then associate publisher and was Head of Communities & Engagement at Springer Nature from 2016, running the Nature Research Communities and other online-engagement activities for researchers. Ben joined Nature Medicine in 2021, with responsibility for news and opinion content, and is based in the London office.

Folakemi T. Odedina, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized cancer researcher and academic leader. She has led global research programs for decades, primarily funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense. This research focuses on developing cost-effective, community-based behavioral intervention programs to address prostate cancer in Black males.

Her research, education, training and community outreach activities have exclusively focused on addressing health disparities in racial and ethnic minority and underserved communities. As a behavioral scientist, she conducts behavioral research across the translational continuum to test behavioral models, confirm who will benefit from behavioral interventions and examine how to deliver interventions in all settings.

Dr. Odedina's research program has developed and validated multiple behavioral models that include multilevel assessment of barriers and facilitators for the uptake of interventions, tested and adapted interventions that include behavioral clinical trials, and worked closely with community health workers to implement health intervention programs in diverse community settings worldwide.

She has also been a leader in training future scientists whose backgrounds are underrepresented in biomedical research.

Amitava Banerjee is Professor in Clinical Data Science at University College London, and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at University College London Hospitals and Barts Health NHS Trusts. Also, he is Vice-President (Digital, Communications and Marketing) of the British Cardiovascular Society and Senior Advisor to the World Heart Federation Emerging Leaders Programme.

As a researcher, educator and clinician, his interests span data science, cardiovascular disease, global health, training and evidence-based healthcare. He has been active both clinically and academically throughout the pandemic, and is leading a large, national Long Covid study (STIMULATE-ICP), which includes a large platform drug trial. He has published over 230 scientific papers with an H-index of 61.

Andrew Pattison is team lead for digital channels in the department of digital health and innovation at the World Health Organization. At WHO, Andy strives to amplify vital public health messages to more people through more channels. During the COVID-19 emergency, Andy has engaged the digital sector to support this mission and leads a task force of over 40 companies working to tackle misinformation, raise quality content, and develop new digital channels. Andy has also been the web lead for over 35 emergencies while at WHO, with deployments to the Africa region to support both Ebola and cholera outbreaks.

Marcia Castro is Andelot Professor of Demography, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and director of the Brazil Studies Program of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). Her research focuses on the development and use of multidisciplinary approaches to identify the determinants of infectious disease transmission in different ecological settings to inform control policies. She has more than 15 years of collaboration with Brazilian researchers, Health Secretariats, and the Ministry of Health particularly related to infectious diseases. She made important contributions during recent public health emergencies (the Zika virus epidemic and the COVD-19 pandemic). Castro has projects on malaria, COVID-19, arboviruses, infant/child mortality and development, and climate change in the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, on COVID-19 she has been assessing the spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 spread in Brazil, mortality, and fertility changes due to the pandemic, risk factors for mortality, and vaccine effectiveness. She serves on several advisory boards in Brazil, including the Institute for the Studies of Health Policies (IEPS), and the Science Center for Early Childhood (NCPI). She earned a PhD in Demography from Princeton University.

Effective Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UFPE. Effective Professor of the NCV-UFPE Medicine Course in the city of Caruaru. She holds a degree from the University of Pernambuco (2006). She has experience in the field of Medicine, with an emphasis on Primary Health Care, Community Mental Health and Holistic Care. Family and Community Physician with Medical Residency at the University of Pernambuco (FCM-UPE). She works as a professor at the Sensitivity Laboratory and at the Interdisciplinary Practices Program for Teaching, Service and Community (PIESC) at NCV-UFPE. She is preceptor of the Residency of Family and Community Medicine of the Municipal Health Department of Recife (SESAU-Recife). She is a Master in Public Health PPGSC-UFPE. She specializes in Natural Gynecology.