Hawa Abu, MD, PhD, MPH
By Merin C. MacDonald | Date published: March 12, 2025
March Researcher Spotlight: Hawa Abu, MD, PhD, MPH
Unwavering faith a grounding force for Department of Medicine physician-scientist
Hawa Abu, MD, PhD, MPH, completed medical school and practiced in Nigeria before relocating to the United States to pursue research training. “While working in Nigeria, I observed there was a lot of brokenness in the healthcare system,” Dr. Abu said. “I realized a way to improve access to care and clinical outcomes, was to engage in research, so I moved to the United States and pursued a master’s in public health at Johns Hopkins.”
At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. Abu focused on epidemiology and biostatistics and worked as a research assistant addressing cardiovascular health disparities, where she learned about the higher incidence of cardiovascular disease among Black individuals. This experience sparked her interest in advancing her research training, leading her to earn her PhD in clinical and population health research at UMass Chan Medical School. With mentorship from Drs. Catarina Kiefe, Robert Goldberg, and David McManus, she utilized the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual framework to explore the impact of spirituality and religiosity on clinical outcomes among survivors of myocardial infarction. “Growing up in Nigeria, many patients prayed for their health and depended a lot on God. I also draw my spiritual strength from God and wanted to know how this would play out in the world of science and medicine,” said Dr. Abu. “We found that patients who prayed for themselves or had other people pray for them had a better quality of life after having a heart attack.”
Following the completion of her PhD, Dr. Abu transitioned to an internal medicine residency at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, where she was drawn to the field of geriatric medicine, inspired by her mentor Dr. Gary Blanchard who had a wonderful approach in caring for older adults. She eventually returned to UMass Chan for a geriatric medicine fellowship in 2023. In July 2024, she joined the faculty in the Division of Geriatric Medicine as an assistant professor of medicine. “Older adults draw my attention because of how complex they are,” she said. “There's a lot of multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and this population has to deal with many social issues as well. Finding ways to help them walk through those complex situations is challenging but very fulfilling for me.”
In September 2024, Dr. Abu received Diversity Supplement funding from the NIH to examine the association between health belief variables, including risk perception, trust in providers, beliefs about the effectiveness of anticoagulation, religiosity, and spirituality and anticoagulation use in older adults with atrial fibrillation. This work will be based on her mentor, Dr. Alok Kapoor’s R01 study, SUPPORT-AF, aimed at improving the use of anticoagulation for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation.
In early January 2025, Dr. Abu received a career development KL2 award from the UMass Chan Center for Clinical and Translational Science KL2 Faculty Career Development Program to enhance the engagement in shared decision-making for stroke prevention among older adults with atrial fibrillation and multiple chronic conditions. “There is a growing prevalence of atrial fibrillation in the United States and the world at large—a ‘cardiovascular epidemic’,” said Dr. Abu. “Atrial fibrillation leads to lots of complication such as stroke, which can result in debilitating outcomes including loss of function and independence, especially among older adults with multiple chronic conditions.”
Dr. Abu explained that older patients are particularly vulnerable to complications from stroke, especially when they are dealing with two or more chronic conditions. The goal of this study is to learn directly from the patients, their caregivers (e.g., family, friends, and loved ones), and clinicians who are involved in the care of these older adults and learn how they engage in the decision-making process for stroke prevention. She aims to enroll patients, caregivers, and clinicians across UMass Memorial Medical Center and a second site at the University of Florida.
Dr. Abu emphasized that her success would not be possible without the support of her family, including her husband and three children, as well as her parents. She is also grateful to all who have supported her in her training and faculty development journey, including her KL2 mentors, Drs. David McManus, Alok Kapoor, Jerry Gurwitz, and Kathy Mazor, her KL2 advisory committee, Drs. Mary Tinetti (Yale), Daniel Matlock (University of Colorado), Mayra Tisminetzky (UMass Chan), and Barbara Kivowitz (a patient care advisor), her division’s chief, Dr. David Dosa, and her colleagues and staff in the Geriatric Medicine Division.
Dr. Abu’s role as a physician-scientist is interwoven with and guided by her faith in God. “I see my role as a physician-scientist as not just a job but a vocation,” she said. “I believe that I have been called by God to serve humankind. This is a calling that I never take for granted. It's a calling that I hold in very high esteem, and I always want to ensure that I do my best.”
We are thrilled that Dr. Abu has joined us on the faculty in the Department of Medicine and wish her many successes in her career as a physician-scientist.