Dr Henry Lugobe

As an obstetrician and gynecologist my central focus is to improve the care of patients, with particular regard to maternal and newborn outcomes in resource limited settings. My research work has focused on the causes of maternal mortality at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in southwestern Uganda and the contribution of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. We have also documented the burden of non-proteinuric preeclampsia, maternal and perinatal outcomes of mothers whose pregnancies are complicated by hypertension in pregnancy and the burden of long term hypertension after pregnancy. My current work is to describe prospectively whether pregnancy unmasks mothers with inherent cardiovascular risks for developing future cardiovascular disease or placenta syndromes are independently responsible for long term cardiovascular disease. We shall do this through a pre-pregnancy cohort.

Our work targets a poorly researched area of women’s long term health care and findings from this study can help inform the care of women in the first year after pregnancy, and for their longer term cardiovascular health. Within sub-Saharan Africa where these disorders are more prevalent and often more complicated and protracted, very little research exists examining the long-term outcomes and impact on cardiovascular health. Moreover, there is no research that examines our ability to leverage the contact women have with the health care system during pregnancy and with a complication such as pre-eclampsia to modify their future cardiovascular health by intervening early.

My long-term career goal is to become an independently-funded clinical and academic researcher with expertise in developing, testing, and implementing innovative strategies to improve maternal and newborn outcomes in resource limited settings. In summary, I am an early-career physician with a demonstrated commitment to clinical research seeking support to tackle an issue of critical public health importance.