Biography & Research:
I am biosocial demographer interested in the demographic, health and social aspects of aging in low and middle income contexts. My approach to study global health, aging and mortality is based on the life-course perspective and my work has shown the long legacy of early childhood factors on health outcomes in late life in different contexts. I am leading a portfolio of research projects that critically evaluates social, demographic and epidemiological theories of aging outside the realm of the transitional aging studies that are focused on upper-middle-income and high-income contexts. I have spearheaded the extension of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH), towards research on cognition, aging, chronic diseases, and mortality in an African high HIV-prevalence context, and established the Mature Adults Cohort of MLSFH (MLSFH-MAC) in 2012. Most recently, my work has focused on the development of a research agenda on cognition in West Africa (Ghana).