Philomena Nyarko

Philomena Efua Nyarko is a Ghanaian statistician and academic, and the former Government Statistician for Ghana, chief executive of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

Education

Nyarko has a PhD in social statistics, awarded by the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. She left the organisation in 1996 and worked at the Navrongo Health Research Centre, leading the Demographic Surveillance System. Her predecessor had been Grace Bediako.

On leaving the Ghana Statistical Service, Nyarko worked as a consultant and was on the Expert Group of the Regional Report of the African Gender and Development Index.

Nyarko has said that access to and take-up of contraception should be improved in Ghana, or there will be adverse effects for the country's development. She has also argued for an increase in the legal age of marriage in Ghana from 18 to 23, in order to decrease population growth and improve women's health.

With extensive teaching and research expertise, Dr. Philomena Efua Nyarko has offered technical guidance and strategic leadership to numerous public and private sector organizations.

Personal life

Nyarko is married and lives in Kumasi. In 2021 she was reported missing.

Publications

Statistical reports

A Situation Analysis Study of Family Planning Service Delivery Points in Ghana (1994), with K. A. Twum-Baah, Pamela Wolf and Henry Odai, Accra: Ghana Statistical Service The Pattern of Poverty in Ghana, 1988-1992: A Study Based on the Ghana Living Standards Survey (1995), with Harold Coulombe, Andrew McKay, Moses Avooner-Williams et al., Accra: Ghana Statistical Service Ghana Statistical Yearbook (2010), Accra: Ghana Statistical Service 2010 Population and Housing Census: Summary of Final Results (2012), Accra: Ghana Statistical Service. (ed) Integrated Business Establishment Survey: National Employment Report (2015), Accra: Ghana Statistical Service.

Journal articles

"The effect of community nurses and health volunteers on child mortality: The Navrongo Community Health and Family Planning Project", with Brian Pence, James F. Phillips and Cornelius Debpuur, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, December 2007, Vol. 35 Issue 6, p599-608. "Is a woman's first pregnancy outcome related to her years of schooling? An assessment of women's adolescent pregnancy outcomes and subsequent educational attainment in Ghana", by Adriana Biney and Philomena Nyarko, Reproductive Health 10 March 2017, Vol. 14, p1-15. "Contemporary female migration in Ghana: Analyses of the 2000 and 2010 Censuses" (2018), with Samantha Lattof, Ernestina Coast and Tiziana Leone, Demographic Research 39: 1181–1226.