Research Faculty

Professor Hammoda Abu-Odah is an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing, The University of Hong Kong. Abu-Odah graduated with his PhD in Nursing from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research focuses on cancer supportive and survivorship care, palliative and end-of-life care, patient-centred communication, sexual health after cancer, and culturally responsive intervention development.

His programme of research aims to improve the quality of life, communication, decision-making, and psychosocial well-being of people affected by cancer and serious illness. Professor Abu-Odah’s work is organised around three interconnected areas: first, cancer survivorship and psychosexual care, with a particular focus on prostate cancer, masculinity, intimacy, patient-reported outcomes, and couple-based supportive care; second, palliative care, advance care planning, good-death experiences, and culturally sensitive decision-support for patients with advanced cancer and their families; and third, digital, arts-based, and AI-enabled supportive care interventions that can be integrated into clinical practice.

Professor Abu-Odah uses qualitative, mixed-methods, psychometric, intervention-development, and feasibility-trial approaches to develop evidence-based and clinically feasible models of care. His recent and ongoing work includes developing and validating patient-reported outcome measures for sexual health in prostate cancer care, designing supportive care interventions for cancer survivors and couples, and co-developing culturally sensitive frameworks to inform advance care planning and end-of-life decision support in Hong Kong.

Professor Abu-Odah also contributes to global palliative care development through international leadership and capacity-building activities, including his role as Nursing Representative for Palestine on the WHO Regional Palliative Care Expert Network and as a Lecturer for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region Blended Palliative Care Courses. Through his research, teaching, leadership, and clinical collaborations, he seeks to establish a strong programme of research in supportive, palliative, and survivorship care that advances person-centred, family-oriented, culturally safe, and digitally enabled cancer care in Hong Kong and internationally.