A Conversation with a Public Health Nutrition Expert, Dr. Souheila Abbeddou

illuminAid (OMPT at the time) was formally introduced to Dr. Abbeddou in 2013 while she was working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of California, Davis. Dr. Abbeddou is an expert in the field of public health nutrition and specializes in nutrition-related research in low and middle income countries. 

An opportunity for collaboration arose six years later when she joined the University of Ghent as a senior postdoctoral researcher and one of her PhD students expressed interest in a behavior change intervention targeting pregnant and lactating women. Dr. Abbeddou recalled the discussion with illuminAid and proposed that the project could test the impact that video education has on maternal health and nutrition. This study began in the spring of 2020 and follows a group of pregnant women throughout their term and for six months after giving birth. Video involving local community members teaching topics of maternal health and nutrition was shown to these women as their pregnancies progressed. This project will continue into the end of this year. 

As a mentor for her students and the mind behind many intervention research projects and publications, Dr. Abbeddou shares her path to success in the following responses: 

What inspired you to start your path of education in food sciences? 

I was born into a middle class family in a small city in North Algeria, known as the “Citrus City” or “La ville des Oranges.” I grew up surrounded by local produce that you can really see changing over the seasons and what was for me, a Mediterranean diet...From a young age I liked to observe the production of food as well as all the traditional processes of food conservation that my mother performed in almost a ritual (drying, jam, couscous..). 

After high school, it was very natural to choose that path. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in Algeria, I completed my Masters at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania in Greece where my inspiration to the world of food sciences was enlarged. But, it is thanks to my PhD at ETH Zurich, Switzerland that I could see the connection of food with the community’s wellbeing. I was also privileged to work closely with the rural community in Aleppo, Syria during this time. They triggered the shift of my career and research interest to Public Health Nutrition in 2011 with the University of California Davis (UC Davis) in Burkina Faso where I coordinated a clinical trial to determine the optimal amount of zinc to include in the supplements provided to children to prevent malnutrition (the International Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplement - ZINC, (iLiNS-ZINC) Project. Once I joined the team, I was hooked! 

What does your day to day work consist of? 

Solving many problems! From my introduction, you can immediately feel that my pathway is not really linear, and neither are the countries and the positions that I have occupied. I joined the University of Ghent, Belgium as a Senior Post-Doctoral researcher within the Public Health Nutrition group, at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care in 2017. 

I don’t think there is a normal day actually! It changes all the time (which is very exciting) and it depends on many aspects, one of which is the academic calendar. My day activity starts with going through my emails to see which aspects I have to urgently follow up with. Right now, we have four ongoing projects between Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Rwanda. Which means, daily or weekly follow up with the field activities, meeting with the collaborators for immediate action, coordinating the different tasks….  

Another important pillar in my activities is the supervision of the PhD students. I have eight students (ten since the time we spoke) who are at different stages of their PhD studies and most are under what we call here a Sandwich program. I try to dedicate a couple of hours for each of them on a weekly basis, from sharing expertise and experience with them and growing together to training and mentoring... My colleagues like to call them my children and I think a few of them like to call me their “Mama.” It’s like you know that you are the example of how they will be in the future as professionals and mentors to their own students, and you should be at your best. When a project is just starting, it can take a full day to several weeks between the whole procedure of the development of the project, getting the ethical clearances, preparations of the implementation of the project and other tasks that I am sure many are familiar with. Overall, training and coordination are taking the major part of my time but I also engage in data analysis and writing articles. And of course any academician is familiar with the time spent in developing proposals from grant applications.

From an academic perspective, what are some of the most surprising things you’ve found in your research about malnutrition in low and middle income countries? 

Every project is a tunnel, we walk in and we don’t know what is at the end, so you should be prepared for all results...One thing that I did find was the importance of adherence in public health. For example, nutrient supplementation among young children...My supervisor at that time, Dr. Sonja Hess, implemented another method consisting of directly observing the behavior of the child and the administration of the supplements. We found that only 60% of children were given the supplements. We also found that sharing with other children from the same family or the close community occurs 50% of the time. This has been the first time where this behavior (which is not surprising in the local communities) has been measured. It was great, actually, to be part of that work and showed me to always think about social aspects in public health. 

What is something you wish the general public knew about health disparities in these countries? 

I wish people knew that we can all do something as little as it can be to reduce the disparities. It is so easy to take things as granted, but all the time, you say to yourself: Hey I could be that person on the other side of the world and my child could be that child who does not have access to health services or even to basic foods. We all think that poverty is so rooted that we can’t do anything about it. YES we can, we can even in our communities where disparities are increasing, even in Europe. 

Education is a right, food is a right and health is a right. Poverty is not a choice so people who are at the lower economic status are not lazy and did not choose to be poor. Unfortunately, poverty is a vicious circle and we can contribute in breaking that circle.

Centre of Rehabilitation and Educational Nutrition (refeeding center) of severely acute malnourished children in Bobo Dioulasso-Burkina Faso, 2017

Because you’ve spent some time in Master’s level teaching related to nutrition, and public health -  In what ways do you see COVID-19 impacting the way we respond to highly communicable diseases in the future, especially in developing countries? 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the high nature of health inequalities as well as how the response should be tailored by country or region. The lockdown that was a solution in many high income countries cannot be implemented in many low income populations make a living on their daily activities. Yes, indeed experts and scientists did not know much about it in the beginning. But it is frustrating to see that local experts are marginalized most of the time while public health related decisions are implemented in their respective countries

I share the feeling of experts who raised the issue of reporting and the lack of it in many countries. This, I am sure has cost us a lot. Mortality, especially in young children, is high in many low income countries. Malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS also kill millions every year. This is not new and I feel bad that efforts are slowed down because of COVID.

We learned that there are several solutions and we should join efforts to combat malnutrition and diseases all together. 

What are the best steps that you think international governments and individuals can take to prevent further spread of disease from this point on? 

The pandemic was a wakeup call to all of us and to the world that health is global. To have successful results, we can’t focus on solving the problem locally. The variants are the best example that if all countries were vaccinated at a faster rate, we could potentially have avoided the spread of disease in places such as Brazil, South Africa, India, and many others. Fighting to get the largest share of vaccines in high income countries will not solve the problem. COVAX, for example, is a good initiative but I am not following closely how it is progressing. 

What has your experience been like working with NGOs? And what did you take away from working with illuminAid and Arba Minch University  in Ethiopia?

 I think many NGOs have great ideas and initiatives in public health and nutrition. However, as scientists we need evidence. And in a world with limited financial resources, policy makers need this evidence for programs that can solve the local and regional problems...

I knew of illuminAid several years ago, but it was until our PhD my student, Mr. Wanzahun Godana joined our group that we began to be in contact. His interest was in maternal health and behavior change and I wanted an innovative idea for his project. So I contacted Matt and the collaboration was born between our group at the University of Ghent, Arba Minch University where the research is implemented, and illuminAid.

As a consortium, we share the same belief on the importance of research for strong evidence and the same spirit and engagement in capacity building. The training organized by illuminAid was attended by at least 10 researchers from different disciplines, and Wanzahun did a great job making videos to share in the local community. illuminAid was supportive until the finalization of the videos and even more than a year after the training that took place in Arba Minch in 2019. The results of our project will be shared with the community, with the NGO and of course are the basis of the PhD of Wanzahun. 

What is a piece of advice you would give to someone entering the field of public health?

 I am amazed at how much you can learn from everyone. Keep your mind open and try to learn from every setting...I think having empathy for others is very important and that you can develop it easily. Everything you learn will take not only a small place in your brain but also in your personality…

We don’t come with our own solutions, we find them together with the communities and other stakeholders. Public health is often entangled with humanitarian aspects and these aspects make us stronger and more engaged with the community. This work marks you forever. So I think people who are getting into the field should know that it is a life experience more than just a research or career experience.