Introduction to Adolescent Health in Uganda
Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa make up a significant portion of the global adolescent population, with around 10.7 million young people aged 10-19 years old making up 25% of the population. As this population continues to grow, we must invest in their education, health, and well-being to ensure a brighter future for all. By coming together at this conference, we learned from each other, shared best practices, and worked towards a common goal of improving adolescent health care across the continent.
Dr. Sabina Bakeera-Kitaka and Dr. Betsy Pfeffer (see Our Team page for bios) have worked collaboratively since 2007 to help scale up Adolescent Healthcare in Uganda with the support of their respective institutional affiliations. Sabrina completed an elective rotation at Columbia University’s Primary Care Ambulatory Care Network Adolescent Health Clinic in NYC. Their work on how global health collaborations can improve adolescent care has been accepted for presentation both locally and internationally. With the formation of GHI in 2018, their goal is to continue this important work to ensure that every child and adolescent grows and reaches their fullest potential.
Adolescent Projects:
Ugandan Adolescent Health Workshops and Conferences
Education and knowledge exchange is one of the most important and sustainable ways for providers from low resource settings to grow, learn and thus affect change. The Makerere & Columbia University Departments of Pediatrics in Collaboration (MUCU) began annual heath trainings in Uganda in 2010. With the formation of GHI, we are committed to continuing the conferences that we began with support of our affiliated universities. Our next conference will be held in Kampala in 2026.
The 2025 conference welcomed 130 attendees and presenters from Kenya, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Botswana and from throughout Uganda. There was ample time for networking and for the exchange of knowledge and experiences and the rich agenda created a deepening understanding of how-to best care for adolescents, help them achieve optimum health and wellness and ultimately grow into productive adults.
Learn more about the November 2025 conference:
Previous Workshops and Conferences
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The 10th two-day Clinical and Scientific conference was held in May, 2024 sponsored by GHI, Makerere University, and PATH-UGANDA.​
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Three annual adolescent health training workshops in Kampala (2010, 2011 and 2012).​
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Six two-day Clinical and Scientific conferences (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) with the support of SAHU, Makerere and Columbia University. Over 100 participants attended including providers caring for adolescent populations in Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Watt, humanitarian photographer
Formation of the Society of Adolescent Health Uganda (SAHU)
SAHU (http://www.sahu.ug) was created in 2012 and is an organization whose mission is to promote comprehensive adolescent health, growth, and development in Uganda through knowledge dissemination, research, advocacy and affiliation with other societies and bodies involved in adolescent health. It is led by experts from Columbia & Makerere Universities. Dr. Bakeera-Kitaka is the current president. SAHU aims to bring providers caring for adolescents together so that they can promote optimal physical and mental health for all adolescents helping them grow into fully functional adults who can achieve their dreams.
Makerere University's Friday Adolescent Health Clinic at Mulago Hospital
The clinic is the first public adolescent health clinic in Uganda and delivers comprehensive care to all patients who attend. Dr. Sabrina Bakeera-Kitaka is the director of the Adolescent Health training program at Makerere University College of Health Sciences and founding the Friday Adolescent Health Clinic in 2013 was Dr. Kitaka’s dream. It is Uganda’s first public adolescent clinic delivering comprehensive care to all adolescent patients.
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Providers include pediatricians, nurses, pediatric residents, and a volunteer psychologist
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The clinic is an adolescent medicine training ground for students and pediatric residents
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12,000 individual patients have been seen in the past 10 years
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Comprehensive care is delivered including physical exams, reproductive and mental health care, management of chronic illnesses, and immunization updates
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Skill building is offered at each visit and broader skill building sessions are given twice a year to 150 invited adolescents.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Watt, humanitarian photographer
Research Collaboration
Dr. Melissa Stockwell, chief of the division of child and adolescent health at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. She was introduced to Dr. Bakeera-Kitaka at the 2018 Adolescent Health Conference in Uganda. They are both passionate about initiatives to improve pediatric and adolescent vaccine uptake and received an NIH grant in 2020 funding a five-year project to assess the effectiveness of text message reminders on improving timely human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Ugandan adolescents. Drs. Melissa Stockwell and Sabrina Bakeera-Kitaka are principal investigators and Dr. Pfeffer is a co-investigator on this grant.
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An article related to this study was accepted for publication:
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SEARCH Study: Text Messages and Automated Phone Reminders for HPV Vaccination in Uganda: Randomized Controlled Trial
Kitaka, S. MBChB, MMed Paed, PhD et al.
JMIR MHEALTH AND UHEALTH April, 2025.
