Håkon Angell Bolkan

Håkon Angell Bolkan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Health and Nursing, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He is a consultant general and abdominal surgeon with extensive experience in global health, having worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone. As former president of MSF Norway, he led the Norwegian Ebola response team during the 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa. He founded CapaCare, an organization dedicated to strengthening surgical and obstetric capacity in under-resourced regions, with operations in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Netherlands, and Norway. His research focuses on scalable solutions to improve access to surgical care in low-income countries, including task-sharing training programs and health system resilience during crises like the Ebola outbreak and the pandemic.

Key research areas include global surgery, health systems in low-income countries, surgical training, and pandemic response. His work emphasizes evidence-based interventions to address unmet surgical needs, particularly in maternal and emergency care. Recent studies highlight surgical task-sharing outcomes, economic evaluations of healthcare interventions, and post-Ebola healthcare recovery in Sierra Leone.

Publications span topics such as wound care epidemiology, economic analyses of hernia repair, and qualitative studies on healthcare system responses to crises. Bolkan chairs CapaCare International and collaborates with institutions like the Global Health Research Group at NTNU.