The Spotlight Series is an interview-based profile series by McGill Global Health Perspectives. The series focuses on researchers and practitioners in global health outside of high-income country settings (and) or representing marginalized groups. For our third Spotlight profile, we are featuring Head of the Health Economics Unit of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Associate Professor Justice Nonvignon from the University of Ghana.
Dr. Justice Nonvignon, who grew up in Ghana, completed his studies in Ghana and Tanzania. He is a leading health economics researcher in Ghana focusing on economic and impact evaluation of health programs with experience of over 12 years in health economics. Justice recently took on the additional responsibility as the head of the Health Economics Unit at the Africa CDC.
Can you tell us about your journey in global health? How did you get involved, what was your path like?
My journey in global health or what eventually became the field of global health started as an undergraduate economics student and through my undergraduate project at the University of Cape Coast – Ghana. At the time, around 2003, Ghana introduced legislation for the health insurance scheme, and I became interested in this new national health insurance scheme. So, my undergraduate project used primary interviews to examine people’s willingness to join the health insurance scheme. Then, as a graduate student completing my master’s in economics at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, I wanted to do something related to health. So, I focused more on health economics coursework and completed my thesis within my master’s.
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