Mark Huffman
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Heart disease and its risk factors, such as high blood pressure, are rising quickly in Nigeria. The country also has one of the world's highest rates of maternal illness and death.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
hypertension
high blood pressure
cardiovascular health
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Analyze through multi-level mediation how team-based care in the WHO HEARTS package lowers blood pressure at clinic and patient levels in the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program.
- Define trajectories of patient retention in long-term hypertension care in Nigerian primary care, and use key informant interviews and discrete choice experiments to learn why patients stay or re-engage.
- Test in a type 2 hybrid cluster randomized trial whether an adapted HEALTH home-based diet and activity program improves weight and cardiovascular health in women recruited during pregnancy in Nigeria.
- Assess implementation of the HEALTH intervention with the RE-AIM framework, aiming to reach mostly women with primary school education or less, and explore effects on infant and child growth.
More about the research
This research asks how proven approaches to cardiovascular care can be delivered effectively in Nigeria's primary health care system. It also asks why they work and for whom. One project studies a large hypertension program. A second tests a healthy-lifestyle program for pregnant women and their children.
Why it matters
Hypertension and maternal ill health are major burdens in Nigeria. Learning what keeps patients in hypertension care and how team-based care lowers blood pressure could help scale up programs across Africa. Improving women's diet and activity during and after pregnancy may improve heart health for both mothers and children. This could help slow the rise of noncommunicable diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
HEARTLINK: Harnessing Effective Approaches for Research and Training in Global Cardiovascular Dissemination, Implementation, and Knowledge Translation
NIH · Aug 2024 – Jun 2029
ENhancing Intergenerational HeAlth in Nigeria: Peripartum as Critical Life StagE for CardioVascular Health (ENHANCE-CVH)
NIH · Sep 2023 – Aug 2028
Closest labs
Matthew Hickey
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Identify patient-level barriers to taking blood pressure medication within an integrated HIV–hypertension care model in rural Kenya, using theory-informed mixed methods within the SEARCH SAPPHIRE trial.
Melissa Goulding
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Refine and co-develop BP-Link, a pediatric clinic program for follow-up blood pressure screening, by working with clinic providers, staff and parents through stakeholder-engaged implementation mapping.
Jennifer Steel
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Evaluate whether CARES, an electronic health record-based screening and stepped collaborative care intervention, improves patient-centered outcomes such as health-related quality of life, in a cluster randomized trial of more than 34 outpatient oncology clinics.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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