Yussif Alhassan is a social scientist with extensive experience in qualitative research and community and stakeholder engagement. He holds a BA degree in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Ghana, MSc in International Development Management from the London School of Economics, MA in Sociology (Global Movement and Sustainability) from University of Glasgow, and a PhD in Social Science with specialisation in community health financing from the London Metropolitan University.
Before joining LSTM, Yussif worked with several organisations on a range of health issues. He was the Health Programme Co-ordinator for the Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems in Ghana where he manged reproductive health interventions. He was also a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the Community Water and Sanitation Agency in Northern Ghana, and a Health Policy Officer at Oxfam-GB. At Oxfam, Yussif worked with the advocacy and campaigns team to promote pro-poor health financing and access to medicine policies in low- and middle-income countries. More recently, he worked with Coventry University as a qualitative research lead for a multi-country study on female genital mutilation (FGM) in the EU. Yussif’s work on FGM has contributed to the development an innovative community-based behaviour change approach for tackling FGM (the REPLACE approach).
In his current role as a Research Associate in the Department of International Public Health, Yussif leads the qualitative research stream of the DolPHIN2 clinical trial which is looking at the efficacy and safety of Dolutegravir (HIV medicine) in late pregnancy. His research focuses on late antenatal care access, HIV treatment in pregnancy, transition to new antiretroviral regimen, and community health workers. Yussif’s other research interests include horizontal health programme, access to medicine, community-based health financing, performance-based health financing, and incentivising behaviour change on health.