Overview

Gianni is a budding academic primary care and public health researcher from Nigeria. His first exposure to research work was on his way to completing his primary medical undergraduate degree at University of Ibadan where he worked on the determinants of health-seeking behavior among indigenes in a rural community in Nigeria during his community medicine posting. He would go on to receive a university prize as the best graduating student in Community Medicine Posting from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Gianni was fascinated by the impact of social and economic factors on health status and the fact that simple relatively cheap interventions such as health promotion often had the largest impact on health outcomes. Gianni fondly recalls during one of his undergraduate days one of his professors describe hospitals as ‘palaces of disease’ and urge that more be done to prevent or treat the risk factors associated with serious disease or morbidity reducing the need for hospital admissions. This helped steer his interest in primary care and public health.

After completing his compulsory national service year in 2018, Gianni was employed as a program officer to work on a $1.5million Gates’ Foundation funded grant to support the health priorities of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to eradicate polio and strengthen the state primary health care systems. Gianni worked with the Project Manager and other staff of the health team to regularly collect relevant primary health care data, synthesize evidence and present in a suitable format to public policy leaders and politicians to stimulate action and guide prioritization of resource mobilization. Gianni saw this project to completion including the major milestone declaration of Nigeria as a polio-free nation by WHO in 2020. He also supported the proposal writing and submission that led to the subsequent renewal of the grant for another six years expanding the scope of work to include Primary Health system strengthening, Nutrition, Immunization and a program for results financing component (PforR).

Gianni started GP training in the UK in August 2020 in Cornwall and was accepted into the Academic Clinical Fellowship program affiliated with Exeter. He sees the NHS primary care model as a world leading model for bridging health inequality however with understandable challenges like resource constraints being a major drawback.

His current interests include broadly health policy and services with a focus on cost effectiveness and patient safety, remote consultations, and primary care diagnostics. He has up till date worked within the Health Policy Research Group led by Professor Jose Martinez Valderas.

Qualifications

• MB;BS (College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria) 2016

Back to top

Research

Research interests

• Rana Y, Dongo G, Snead C et al. Developing effective data visualization tools for nutrition: reflections on the design of a Nutrition Scorecard in Nigeria [version 1; peer review: 1 approved]. Gates Open Res 2021, 5:98 (https://doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.13319.1)
• Iwu, C.G., Opute, A.P., Eze, I.F., Dongo G.U, Dongo, O.W. 2020. Scavenging for Survival and its Health Implications. The Nexus between unemployment and ill-health. WSEAS Transactions on Environment and Development, ISSN:1790-5079.

Research projects

• Dongo G, Egwim N, Howe RW, Valderas JM. Scoping Review of Methods Used to Assess Patient Safety of Remote Consultations in Primary Care in the UK (In Progress)

Back to top

External Engagement and Impact

Awards

• Sir Kofo Abayomi Prize for Best Graduating Student in Community Medicine Posting, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• Dr SEA Health Initiative Prize, Buea, Cameroon

Back to top