IN OCTOBER 2024, just weeks after joining Sargent, Hayford Avedzi was back in his native Ghana to speak at the 9th Africa Nutrition Conference in Cape Coast. Avedzi, a clinical assistant professor of health sciences and member of Sargent’s Global Health Nutrition Lab, was presenting his results from a trial of a digital health tool that delivers nutrition advice to people with diabetes. A member of the audience was intrigued—and wanted to know if the same approach could be adapted to help women and children in Ghana.

That audience member was Anna Lartey, a professor at the University of Ghana, Legon, and the former director of nutrition at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Her question sparked a discussion with Avedzi and Lindsey Locks, director of the Global Health Nutrition Lab— and launched their largest project to date.

Within months of the conference, a Sargent team—Locks, Avedzi, and Jacqueline Lauer, a clinical assistant professor of health sciences—was collaborating with the University of Ghana and the Ghana Health Service to develop a mobile platform that will deliver evidence-based prenatal and postpartum nutrition information. It’s called ObaaPa, which means “good woman” in Ghana’s Twi language. The work is in its early stages, but Locks hopes that by the end of the project, every prenatal clinic in Ghana will post a QR code for patients who want to download the app.

A LEADER IN GLOBAL NUTRITION

Locks, an assistant professor of health sciences, arrived at Sargent in 2018 and established the Global Health Nutrition Lab with the intention of developing nutrition-related interventions for underserved communities in Africa and Asia. Lauer was hired in 2020. The two have launched programs in maternal, child, and adolescent health in India, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Many of the lab’s early projects involved collaborating with partners already established in those countries. They’ve worked with colleagues at the BU School of Public Health to study the role of nutrition in maternal and child health in India and Zambia. In addition, they’ve collaborated with Boston Medical Center, BU’s primary teaching hospital, to study the connection between malnutrition and tuberculosis. “We’re at the point with the lab where we want to develop and commit to our own research site. That’s what Ghana offers,” says Lauer.

The hiring of Avedzi in 2024 opened the door to expanding their work into Ghana. His relationships there were significant, but there were other reasons it made good sense for Sargent to partner with the West African nation. “Ghana has a history of international work, and the University of Ghana is a global leader in nutrition,” Avedzi says. Sargent will have access to sophisticated labs and highly trained researchers, and BU students will have access to University of Ghana programs. Avedzi took the first group of Sargent students to Ghana on a service learning trip in July.

Despite recent progress, Ghana continues to struggle with maternal and child undernutrition. Maternal and infant mortality rates have dropped, but still exceed United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. A 2020 report from the National Institutes of Health concluded that nutrition-focused community education programs should be a priority.

One strength that Sargent brings to the partnership is an expertise in the development and promotion of digital health tools. The team’s vision for the app includes dietician videos, a chat room, and other features that will deliver nutrition information directly to Ghanaian women—an estimated 85 percent of whom own mobile phones.

FILLING THE HUMANITARIAN VOID

Sargent’s relationships in Ghana have developed just as the Trump administration has contracted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The US had long been the global leader in health and humanitarian aid, and USAID was responsible for distributing more than $40 billion annually, much of it targeting disease and hunger. The rapid halt to funding has left the global health community reeling.

More than 100,000 jobs have been lost worldwide and critical sources of data shut down. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at SPH and the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has projected that nearly 168,000 additional children will die from malnutrition in the first year following the discontinuation of aid.

The Global Health Nutrition Lab would have submitted their app for a USAID grant but will now have to find funding elsewhere. “The federal government has abandoned the idea that people around the world should be working together for a common good,” says Locks. “But American individuals and organizations have not. Everyone is frantically trying to salvage what they can, whether that’s saving data or lives.”

The ObaaPa app project will require development and testing. Avedzi was awarded a Clinical Faculty Scholarship Grant by Sargent College to fund early research into app development. Locks hopes it will be widely available in five to eight years. The potential payoff for those years of research and development are huge. There is, of course, the immediate value for mothers, expecting mothers, and their children; beyond that, the app could be used by the Ghana government to deliver other health programs. For Sargent, Locks sees an opportunity to apply the strategies developed and lessons learned from the project in other countries.

“I have faith in our lab and our students,” she says. “We will continue to do this critical work regardless of the geo¬political context. Universities are important—we can foster critical collaborations. We can help.”

STORY BY MARC CHALUFOUR