Faculty: Medicine
Program: Master of Public Health
Year: 2018
Country: Uganda
Disan would describe himself as resilient, versatile, dynamic, and friendly. His extensive field experience in emergency nutrition responses, maternal and child nutrition, has taught Disan to appreciate the spirit of give-back and its impact on the lives of others. This same spirit led him to co- found Apt Nutriconsult- a consulting firm dedicated to fighting hunger and malnutrition by empowering the most vulnerable communities with best practices on WASH, optimal nutrition, and sustainable land use. Disan believes Sub-Saharan Africa needs reliable public health leadership to provide multi-sectorial approaches including sustainable land and water management to eradicate malnutrition. Through the Master of Public Health program at UBC, he intends to broaden his understanding of the intricate relationship between the environment, health and nutrition in the etiology and prevention of diseases. He describes UBC as a multi-cultural and collaborative ecosystem with a rich history of excellence in academics and scientific research thus a hot spot for innovations.
Upon graduation, Disan aspires to use his skills to strengthen health and nutrition governance as well as the technical capacity of local authorities in rural areas to improve maternal, newborn and child health through nutrition and food security. This will entail; monitoring famine early warning systems and guiding timely corrective action to avert the severity and crisis from anticipated food scarcity. Additionally, he hopes to support hunger prone communities to establish robust nutrition surveillance systems that allow for; timely active case finding and referral of malnourished patients for rehabilitation, thus reducing linked deaths and illnesses.