Seminar Series: Dr. Obidimma Ezezika
From Evidence to Impact: Leadership and Systems in the Scaling of Health Innovations
Obidimma Ezezika
Associate Professor
School of Health Studies
Faculty of Health Sciences
Western University
Director
Global Health &Innovation Lab
Short Biography:
Dr. Obidimma Ezezika is an Associate Professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University and Director of the Global Health & Innovation Lab. His work focuses on how health innovations scale in real-world settings, with a particular emphasis on leadership, systems, and decision-making in African health systems. Drawing on research across vaccines, nutrition, digital health, and pandemic response, his scholarship examines why strong scientific evidence often fails to translate into population-level impact, and what enables successful scale across complex and resource-constrained contexts.
Abstract:
Despite strong scientific evidence, many health innovations fail to achieve sustained impact at scale. This seminar examines why the challenge of translating evidence into action is fundamentally a systems and leadership problem. Drawing on comparative case studies from across Africa and recent empirical work on vaccine scale-up and pandemic response, the talk explores how leadership, trust, integration, and coordination shape real-world outcomes. Using examples from routine immunization, digital health, and COVID-19 vaccine delivery, the seminar highlights why evidence alone is insufficient and what enables health systems to scale innovations under both routine and crisis conditions.
Area of Research:
Global Health; Implementation Science; Epidemiology; African Health Systems; Vaccine Equity; Pandemic Preparedness; Leadership; Scale-up
Date: Friday, February 27
Time: 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Location: PHFM 3015 (Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine) or Zoom (request link by email epibio@uwo.ca )
