Dr. Renuka Jayatissa
Undernutrition, overweight and obesity, micronutrient deficiencies and food security, nutrition policy
Dr. Renuka Jayatissa MBBS, M.Sc, MD, FPGIM, FCCP, is a Vice Chancellor and Head Faculty of Food science and Nutrition at International Institute of Health Science Multiversity. She has worked in the Ministry of Health for 38 years and as a Specialist in Community Medicine and nutrition for 25 years. She has done a fellowship in public health nutrition and clinical nutrition in London school of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Royal London Hospital in UK. She has worked as a Consultant Medical Nutritionist and Head of Department of Nutrition, Medical Research Institute in the Ministry of health for 20 years and as a Nutrition Specialist in UNICEF for 5 years. She is the South Asia Regional coordinator of Iodine Global Network. She is the current President of Association of SAARC FOODS in Sri Lanka. She was the founder president of Sri Lanka Medical Nutrition Association and Past President of Nutrition society of Sri Lanka. She pioneered in establishing the MD clinical nutrition degree for doctors in Sri Lanka. Her research interests are child and adult malnutrition, micronutrients, food security and nutrition in illnesses. She has published widely in international and national journals. She is an editor and reviewer for numerous journals.
Dr. Renuka Jayatissa
It is important to invest more on research and targeted interventions to achieve global targets. Especially multi country studies to explore different approaches to find out feasibility of implementation of targeted interventions in different settings. Uses of locally available food items to improve practices and to improve food based approaches rather than supplementation should be explored more and more which will help to develop Best practice models in different regions and to sustain the systems.