Kampala wakes early, but for some girls, the day begins already heavy. In Uganda, nearly three-quarters of the population is under 30, growing up happens fast, and often without protection. One in four Ugandan girls aged 15–19 has already begun childbearing, giving Uganda the highest teenage pregnancy rate in East Africa.

Layered onto this is displacement. The country hosts about 1.7 million refugees, many living in cities like Kampala, where survival depends on navigating systems not designed with them in mind. Also, nationally, 1.4 million people live with HIV, and 70 per cent of new infections among young people occur in adolescent girls, a reminder that vulnerability is rarely singular. When COVID-19 shut the country down, the consequences were immediate, with pregnancies among girls aged 15–19 rising by 25.5 per cent, while pregnancies among girls aged 10–14 surged by 366 per cent.

The numbers tell a story of youth, risk, and quiet urgency. But they do not tell it all. For years, Olivia Nakisita, a public health researcher,has followed how adolescent girls, many of them refugees, navigate pregnancy in Kampala: how far they must travel for care, how early they arrive or delay, and how often services that exist fail to meet them where they are. Her work lives at the uneasy intersection of policy and lived reality, where access does not always translate into care.

February 25^th 2026, is the day that her work on whether urban health systems are truly ready for the youngest mothers they now serve will bring her to Freedom Square at Makerere University, where she will graduate with a PhD in Public Health.

Her doctoral journey, focused on maternal health services for adolescent refugees in urban Uganda, has unfolded at the intersection of scholarship, community service, and the daily realities of young girls navigating pregnancy far from home.

The Work That Came Before the Question

Long before she began writing a PhD proposal, Olivia Nakisita was already immersed in adolescent health. As a Research Associate in the Department of Community Health and Behavioral Sciences at Makerere University’s School of Public Health, she taught graduate and undergraduate students, supervised Master’s research, and worked closely with communities. Beyond the university, she led New Life Adolescent and Youth Organization (NAYO), a women-led organisation she founded in 2021 to strengthen access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information and services for adolescents and young people.

It was through this community work that a troubling pattern began to surface.

“During our community service,” she explains, “we noted increasing teenage pregnancies, and we also noted challenges with access to maternal health services by teenage pregnant girls.”

Among those girls were adolescents living as urban refugees in Kampala, young, displaced, often poor, and navigating pregnancy in a city not designed with them in mind.

For Nakisita, the concern deepened through her academic training in Public Health Disaster Management, one such programme that prepares multidisciplinary professionals with the technical expertise and leadership competencies required to plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from complex disasters through a public health lens. This programme sharpened Nakisita’s interest in how displaced populations survive within complex urban systems. Uganda’s integrated health model, where refugees and host communities are expected to use the same facilities, appears equitable on paper. In practice, it can be unforgiving.

“I got interested in understanding how these refugees who get pregnant manage to navigate the complexities of integration in host societies like Kampala,” she says. “This was driven by the desire to address their needs and to inform and evaluate existing refugee health policies.”

That desire became the foundation of her PhD.

Asking Hard Questions in a Crowded City

Her doctoral research, “Maternal Health Services for Adolescent Refugees in Urban Settings in Uganda: Access, Utilisation, and Health Facility Readiness,” was conducted in Kampala between November 2023 and August 2024. It combined quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews, engaging 637 adolescent refugees aged 10–19 years, alongside health workers and facility assessments.

Her findings showed high perceived access to maternal health services. Clinics existed. Services were available. Yet utilisation, particularly of antenatal care (ANC), lagged. “About three-quarters of the girls attended at least one antenatal visit,” she explains, “but only about four in ten attended in the first trimester.”

And that gap matters. Public health research shows that early and regular antenatal care allows health workers to detect high-risk pregnancies, initiate supplements such as iron and folic acid, monitor fetal development, and provide psychosocial support. Without it, risks compound silently.

By contrast, her study found that facility-based deliveries were remarkably high, with nearly all adolescent refugees (98.3%) giving birth in health facilities, suggesting that the system was reachable, but uneven.

Where the System Falls Short

Her research went beyond utilisation to examine whether health facilities were actually ready to serve adolescent refugees.

Findings show that lower-level health centres in Kampala were moderately prepared to offer adolescent-friendly maternal health services. Some staff were trained. Some spaces existed. Despite this, critical gaps remained. For instance, facilities lacked essential equipment and supplies. Non-provider staff were often untrained. Separate, private spaces for adolescents were limited. Language barriers complicated care. Overcrowding strained already stretched health workers.

In her qualitative interviews, health workers expressed empathy and willingness to help. Many relied on peer educators and community health workers to reach adolescent refugees. But good intentions were not enough.

“They recommended training of healthcare workers, translators for refugees, and improvement in the availability of essential drugs, supplies, and equipment,” Nakisita notes.

She notes that readiness is not just about infrastructure but about the people, preparation, and priorities.

Research with an Emotional Cost

For Nakisita, working with adolescent refugees required care, not only methodologically, but emotionally.

Finding participants in Kampala was itself a challenge. Unlike settlement settings, urban refugees are dispersed, often invisible. Ethical considerations were constant. Adolescents who had given birth were legally considered emancipated minors, but their vulnerability remained.

Though the thesis focused on systems rather than personal narratives, Nakisita’s earlier work with adolescents informed every decision she made. It shaped how she framed questions, interpreted data, and weighed policy implications. This was not detached research, but careful, deliberate, and grounded.

The Scholar Formed by Continuity

Nakisita’s PhD sits atop more than 18 years of experience in training, research, and community service. She is an alumna of Makerere College School (UCE), 1996 and Greenhill Academy Secondary School (UACE), 1998, a long journey through Uganda’s education system before her Diploma in Project Planning and Management at Makerere University completed in early 2000s.

She would later return eight years later to Makerere University for her Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and a Master’s in Public Health Disaster Management, and now a PhD in Public Health.

Her academic rigor is reflected in extensive training across SRHR, impact evaluation, research methods, ethics, disaster resilience, and humanitarian health. She has presented at regional and international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals on adolescent health, refugee maternal care, gender-based violence, and health systems readiness.

As a PhD student, she supervised three Master’s students to completion, with another currently progressing, quietly extending her influence through mentorship.

When Evidence Demands Action

If policymakers were to act on one lesson from her research, Nakisita says; “Emphasis should be given to maternal health services for adolescents.”  “They are high-risk mothers,” she adds.

Her findings call for targeted community-based interventions, outreaches, home visits, and financial support for adolescents who cannot afford prescribed drugs, delivery requirements, or critical tests like ultrasound scans.

They also call for health systems to move beyond one-size-fits-all models, recognising that age, displacement, and poverty intersect to shape how care is accessed and experienced.

Now that her PhD is complete, Nakisita plans to translate research into action. Several papers from her study have already been published. A policy brief is planned to influence decision-making in urban and humanitarian health settings.

When asked what she would say directly to adolescent refugee girls navigating pregnancy in unfamiliar cities, her response is simple and direct.

“If it happens,” she says, “as soon as you find out, go to the nearest health facility and seek care. Always return for the visits as asked by the health worker. Ensure that you deliver in a health facility with a skilled health worker.”

Arrival, Without Illusion

When Dr. Olivia Nakisita steps onto the graduation stage at Freedom Square, applause will follow. But the true significance of that moment lies in health facilities still struggling to adapt; in adolescent refugees whose pregnancies unfold quietly in rented rooms and crowded neighborhoods; in policies waiting to be sharpened by evidence.

Her scholarship does not promise quick fixes but offers clarity.

Among the PhDs conferred at Makerere University’s 76^th graduation, her work reminds us that some research does not begin in libraries and does not end with theses. It lives on in the slow, necessary work of making health systems see those they have long overlooked.

— Makerere University School of Public Health Communications Office, Graduation Profiles Series, 76^th Graduation Ceremony

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Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Department of Immunology and Molecular Biology, in collaboration with the Makerere University Biomedical Research Centre (MakBRC), is pleased to invite applications for a Short Course in Molecular Diagnostics scheduled for 23^rd–27^th March 2026.

This hands-on course will introduce participants to core principles and practical skills in molecular diagnostics, including nucleic acid structure and function, laboratory design and workflow, PCR setup, gel electrophoresis and DNA band interpretation, contamination control and quality assurance, and clinical applications of PCR in disease diagnosis.

The training will take place at the Genomics, Molecular, and Immunology Laboratories and will accommodate 30 trainees. The course fee is UGX 500,000.

Target participants include:

• Graduate students with basic exposure to molecular biology (e.g., MICM, MSBT)
• Final year undergraduate students (e.g., BBLT, BMLS)
• Medical and veterinary clinicians
• Agricultural professionals interested in practical molecular biology

To apply, please send your signed application via email to nalwaddageraldine@gmail.com (copy Dr. Eric Kataginy at kataginyeric@gmail.com). Indicate your current qualification, physical address, and phone contact (WhatsApp preferred), and attach a copy of your National ID or passport data page, your current transcript or testimonial, and your degree certificate (if applicable).

The application deadline is 13^th March 2026. Successful applicants will be notified by email. Admitted participants are required to pay the course fee within five days to confirm their slot.

For further inquiries, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Ms. Geraldine Nalwadda on +256 701 361449.

See download below for detailed call.

The ward is never quiet during labour. Even at night, there are cries, some sharp with pain, others muted by exhaustion. Monitors beep. Midwives move quickly between beds. In the moments just before birth, everything narrows to breath, pressure, and time.

It was in places like this, years ago, that Phillip Wanduru first learned how fragile that moment can be.

Working as a clinical nurse at Nakaseke Hospital in central Uganda, he watched babies who should have survived struggle for breath. Some were born still. Others cried briefly, then went silent. Many were not premature or unusually small; they were full-term babies whose lives unraveled during labour.

“What troubled me most,” Wanduru recalls, “was that these were complications we have known how to manage for more than a hundred years, prolonged labour, obstructed labour, and hypertension. And yet babies were still dying or surviving with brain injuries.”

Those early encounters never left him. They became the questions that followed him into public health, into research, and eventually into a doctoral thesis that would confront one of Uganda’s most persistent and preventable tragedies.

A Public Defense, Years in the Making

On Friday, June 13, 2025, Wanduru stood before colleagues, mentors, and examiners in a hybrid doctoral defense held at the David Widerström Building in Solna, Sweden, and online from Kampala. The room was formal, but the subject matter was anything but abstract.

His PhD thesis, “Intrapartum-Related Adverse Perinatal Outcomes: Burden, Consequences, and Models of Care from Studies in Eastern Uganda,” was the culmination of years spent listening to mothers, following newborns long after delivery, and documenting what happens when birth goes wrong.

He completed the PhD through a collaborative programme between Makerere University and Karolinska Institutet, under the supervision of Prof. Claudia Hanson, Assoc. Prof. Peter Waiswa, Assoc. Prof. Helle Mölsted Alvesson, and Assoc. Prof. Angelina Kakooza-Mwesige, a team that bridged global expertise and local reality. His doctoral training unfolded as the two institutions marked 25 years of collaboration, a partnership that has shaped generations of public health researchers and strengthened research capacity across Uganda and beyond.

By the time he defended, the findings were already unsettlingly clear.

One in Ten Births

In hospitals in Eastern Uganda, Wanduru’s research found that more than one in ten babies experiences an intrapartum-related adverse outcome. This medical term refers to babies who are born still, die shortly after birth, or survive with brain injury caused by oxygen deprivation during labour.

Among those outcomes, stillbirths accounted for four in ten cases. Five in ten babies survived with brain injury.

“These are not rare events,” Wanduru explains. “They are happening every day, often in facilities where care should be available.”

But survival was only part of the story.

Following infants diagnosed with intrapartum-related neonatal encephalopathy for a year, his research revealed that about seven in ten babies with severe brain injury died before their first birthday. Among survivors, many faced lifelong challenges, difficulty walking, talking, and learning.

“What happens in labour,” he says, “does not end in the delivery room. It follows families for years.”

He describes the findings of his PhD research as appalling, evidence of an urgent failure in how labour and delivery are managed, and a call for immediate action to prevent avoidable complications. “Babies with severe brain injuries,” he notes, “faced the greatest odds. Even when they survived birth, nearly seven in ten died before their first birthday. Of those who lived beyond infancy, about half were left with long-term challenges, including difficulties with walking, talking, or learning.”

Mothers at the Centre—Yet Often Invisible

Wanduru’s work did not stop at numbers. Through in-depth interviews with mothers and health workers, he uncovered a quieter truth that parents, especially mothers, were desperate to help their babies survive, but often felt unsupported themselves.

Mothers followed instructions closely. They learned to feed fragile babies, keep them warm, and monitor breathing. They complied with every rule, driven by fear and hope in equal measure.

“The survival of the baby became the only focus,” Wanduru says. “But the mothers were exhausted, emotionally drained, and often ignored once the baby became the patient.”

Even as mothers remained central to care, their own physical and mental well-being received little attention. For the poorest families, the burden was heavier still: long hospital stays, transport costs, and uncertainty about the future.

These insights shaped one of the thesis’s most powerful conclusions: saving newborn lives requires caring for families, not just treating conditions.

Why Care Fails—Even When Knowledge Exists

One of the most uncomfortable findings in Wanduru’s research was that emergency referrals and caesarean sections did not consistently reduce the risk of brain injury, except in cases of prolonged or obstructed labour.

The problem, he found, was not the intervention, but the delay.

In many facilities, hours passed between identifying a complication and acting on it. Ambulances were unavailable. Referral systems were weak. Operating theatres lacked supplies or staff.

“These are not failures of science,” Wanduru says. “They are failures of systems.”

His work reinforces a sobering reality for policymakers that most intrapartum-related deaths and disabilities are preventable, but only if care is timely, coordinated, and adequately resourced.

From Bedside to Systems Thinking

Wanduru’s path into public health began at the bedside. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Mbarara University of Science and Technology in 2011, he trained as a clinician, caring for patients during some of their most vulnerable moments. He later completed a Master of Public Health at Makerere University in 2015, a transition that gradually widened his focus from individual patients to the health systems responsible for their care.

His work gradually drew him deeper into the systems shaping maternal and newborn care. As a field coordinator for the MANeSCALE project, he worked within public and private not-for-profit hospitals, helping to improve clinical outcomes for mothers and babies. Under the Preterm Birth Initiative, he served as an analyst, contributing to efforts to reduce preterm births and improve survival among vulnerable infants through quality-improvement and discovery research across Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.

In the Busoga region, he coordinated prospective preterm birth phenotyping, following mothers and babies over time to better understand the causes and consequences of early birth. Since 2016, this work has been anchored at Makerere University School of Public Health, where he serves as a Research Associate in the Department of Health Policy, Planning, and Management.

Across these roles, he found himself returning to the same question: why babies continue to die during a moment medicine has long learned to handle.

Models of Care That Could Change Outcomes

Wanduru’s thesis does more than document failure; it points toward solutions.

He highlights family-centred care models, including Kangaroo Mother Care, which keep babies and parents together and improve recovery, bonding, and brain development. He emphasizes early detection of labour complications, functional referral systems, and rapid access to emergency obstetric care.

“These are not new ideas,” he says. “The challenge is doing them consistently.”

He also calls for recognizing stillbirths, not as inevitable losses, but as preventable events deserving data, policy attention, and bereavement support.

“Stillbirths are often invisible,” he notes. “But they matter to mothers, to families, and to the health system.”

Research That Changes Practice

For Wanduru, the most meaningful part of the PhD journey is that the evidence is already being used. Findings from his work have informed hospital practices, advocacy reports, and quality-improvement discussions.

“Yes, the PhD was demanding,” he admits. “But knowing that the work is already contributing to change makes it worthwhile.”

His mentors see him as part of a broader lineage, researchers committed not only to generating evidence but to ensuring it improves care.

With a PhD in his bag, Wanduru sees his work as a continuation rather than a conclusion.

“The fight to make birth safe for every mother and baby continues,” he says. “I want to contribute to improving care and to building the capacity of others to do the same.”

That means mentoring young researchers, strengthening hospital systems, and keeping the focus on families whose lives are shaped in the delivery room.

Dr. Wanduru joins fellows in the MakSPH PhD forum who concluded their doctoral journeys in 2025, and his work speaks for babies who never cried, for mothers who waited too long for help, and for health workers doing their best within strained systems. It insists that birth, while always risky, does not have to be deadly.

— Makerere University School of Public Health Communications Office, Graduation Profiles Series, 76^th Graduation Ceremony

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