Maternal and infant mortality remain among the most pressing public health challenges worldwide, driven by persistent inequities in access to care, health education and effective primary healthcare delivery. Nigeria bears a particularly worrisome burden of this crisis, with a woman’s lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes estimated at one in 22, compared with one in 4,900 in high-income countries. Neonatal and under-five mortality rates are similarly alarming, with the World Health Organisation estimating that one in five Nigerian children does not survive to their fifth birthday.
One of those working hard to reverse these grim realities is Nurse Ayomidamope Adebiyi. The family-focused nurse leader and occupational health specialist has emerged as a powerful professional voice, applying clinical expertise, institutional leadership and community-based interventions to improve outcomes for women and infants. She is the founder of Care for the Unreached, a non-profit initiative bringing life-saving care and health education to the most vulnerable women and children in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
Through sustained intervention, mentorship and advocacy, Adebiyi has helped in expanding antenatal care, boosting childhood immunisation, and providing immediate access to health screening for hundreds of mothers and infants who would otherwise have little or no access to healthcare. She also continues to help in empowering mothers, developing local healthcare systems, and initiating projects to positively impact indigent individuals and families.
Formative influences
Adebiyi’s path into nursing was neither conventional nor accidental. Born prematurely at 29 weeks as one of a set of triplets, at UCH Ibadan, she survived circumstances that claimed the lives of her two brothers. Their deaths, resulting from limited access to specialised neonatal care, would later propel her vision to combat health inequity.
Many years later, after moving to the United States and seeing the diverse life-saving possibilities of advanced healthcare, she began to reflect more deeply about those early circumstances. She became acutely aware of the contrast between neonatal outcomes in well-resourced health systems and those in settings where basic life-saving infrastructure remains absent. That awareness crystallised into determination. According to her, “Before and after I left Nigeria, ‘how do I give back and contribute?’ was one of the lingering questions and agenda in my heart I’m very passionate about Nigeria.”
Initially trained in mass communication at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (2004-2006), Adebiyi took advantage of the US learning environment that supported academic transition and pursued nursing education. She attended Miami Dade College in Florida for her pre-nursing studies and nursing degree (from 2011 to 2017). Thereafter, she proceeded to the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for her MSc. in Nursing, specialising in family nurse practice and subspecialising in occupational and environmental health nursing. She also attended the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing for a post master’s programme in nursing education. In all, she embraced her new trajectory with a strong sense of purpose, recognising it as a means through which she could address the same systemic failures that had once affected her own family. She is currently completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programme at Johns Hopkins University.
Clinical practice and global professional engagement
At present, Adebiyi primarily serves as an occupational health clinical and programme lead and nurse practitioner at the University of California, Merced. In this role, she provides clinical oversight for employee health, medical surveillance programmes and workplace safety initiatives, including frameworks supporting high-containment biomedical research facilities.
Her professional experience also includes service as an emergency and trauma registered nurse across teaching hospitals in Florida and California, where she gained first-hand exposure to acute care delivery in complex, high-pressure environments. These experiences reinforced her appreciation of healthcare systems as both clinical and social structures, shaped by policy, access and institutional priorities.
Beyond her formal employment, Adebiyi has remained actively engaged in global health volunteering within the United States, advocating for migrant and underserved populations, particularly within agricultural communities where healthcare access remains limited. She views herself as a global citizen, attentive to the realities of health inequity across borders, a perspective sharpened by the COVID-19 pandemic’s exposure of the interconnectedness of public health systems worldwide.
Care for the unreached
In 2018, Adebiyi founded Care for the Unreached to address gaps in maternal, newborn and child health services in rural Nigeria. The initiative operates through partnerships with local volunteers, primary healthcare centres and community leaders, ensuring that interventions are contextually appropriate and locally sustained.
Through Care for the Unreached, Adebiyi has overseen the establishment of multiple community outreach centres delivering free prenatal and antenatal clinics, newborn care kits, family planning services and education on breastfeeding and maternal health. The organisation has also facilitated access to childhood immunisations, enabling hundreds of children to receive vaccines protecting against preventable diseases.
Importantly, Adebiyi emphasises that the success of the initiative rests on collective effort rather than individual leadership. While she provides strategic direction, the day-to-day work is conducted by partners and volunteers on the ground. This decentralised approach has allowed the programme to operate effectively across geographical distance, using digital communication to coordinate activities while empowering local health workers.
Advocacy, mentorship and systems change
Beyond service delivery, Adebiyi’s work is sustained by a strong commitment to advocacy and mentorship. She regularly participates in community service-learning programmes, mentors nursing students transitioning into professional practice, and supports high school students exploring careers in healthcare. Through these engagements, she seeks to cultivate a generation of health professionals who recognise both the technical and ethical dimensions of care.
Her advocacy extends into national and international forums. As a Clinton Global Initiative University alumna and former regional alumni ambassador, she has contributed to discussions on leadership, civic engagement and health equity. She has also advocated for migrant workers’ health rights in the United States, highlighting parallels between marginalised communities across different contexts.
Central to Adebiyi’s philosophy is the belief that governments alone cannot resolve entrenched health inequities. Instead, she argues for collaborative approaches that mobilise professionals, communities and institutions toward shared responsibility. In her view, strengthening primary healthcare systems is not merely a technical exercise, but a moral imperative that determines whether women and children are afforded the dignity of survival.
Awards and recognitions
Adebiyi’s contributions to nursing leadership, community health and advocacy have been recognised through several prestigious awards. In 2015 and 2017, she received the United States Presidential Volunteer Service Award, conferred by President Barack Obama, in recognition of her sustained community service locally and internationally.
In 2022, she was selected as a recipient of the Jeannine Rivet National Leadership Fellowship, a competitive award established by the American Nurses Foundation through support from the United Health Foundation. The fellowship honours emerging nurse leaders who integrate clinical expertise with civic and professional leadership, providing funding and development opportunities to expand their impact.
Nurse Adebiyi’s contributions and recognitions continue to position her as a nurse leader whose work transcends traditional clinical boundaries. They also affirm the growing visibility of nursing professionals as architects of health systems change, capable of transforming outcomes at both community and policy levels.
