Abigail Harrison
MBBS, MSc (Epi), DM (Paed)
Abigail Harrison is a senior lecturer, and coordinator for the paediatric residency programme and the postgraduate diploma in Adolescent Health and Advocacy, in the Department of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of the West Indies, Mona in Jamaica. She is also consultant paediatrician and adolescent medicine physician at the University Hospital of the West Indies.
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Abigail has worked consistently to improve health services for adolescents in Jamaica through collaborative efforts between the UWI and the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Jamaica, training broad levels of staff to build human resource capacity. Through this partnership over 500 health care providers across the island (physicians, nurses, dietitians, social workers and psychologists) who care for adolescents, have been trained at an annual national adolescent health workshop since 2010.
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Abigail led the development and launch of the hybrid Adolescent Health and Advocacy postgraduate diploma programme at the UWI in 2019, which is now in its fifth successful year, with graduates from six English-speaking Caribbean countries.
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She is the current President and a founding member of the Caribbean Association for Adolescent Health (CAAH) and is also the President of the International Chapter for the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM).
Her research interests include delivery of health care services to adolescents, disordered eating behaviours in adolescents, adolescents living with chronic illness, and resilience. She has as one of her professional goals, the continued improvement of adolescent health care in Jamaica and the Caribbean, to be achieved through national, regional and international collaborative efforts.