Nigerian -born health innovator Anina Agboola.
With chronic illness quietly claiming lives across Nigeria and worldwide, health innovator Anina Agboola, 31, has built a tool to detect danger before it strikes—and a movement to help families take control of their future.
The tolls of sudden death are evident in our metropolis, where incidents occur in places of worship, offices, and homes.
A recent article by Senator Babafemi Ojudu, a renowned journalist and former member of the National Assembly, highlighted the urgency of self-care after 45. He noted that sudden death is often attributed to mystical demise, but the reality is that many lives are lost due to undetected chronic conditions.
Recent incidents include the death of Mr. Kunle Akinyele, a retired Custom officer who collapsed and died during his wife’s 60th birthday thanksgiving service, and Mrs. Bukola Agbakaizu, a broadcaster who collapsed and died on her desk. More recently, a Nigerian Deputy Commissioner of Police, Guri, slumped and died inside his office in Abuja on June 2nd, 2025.
These incidents illustrate the harsh reality of chronic illness, where symptoms often go unnoticed until it’s too late. Imagine planning your daughter’s wedding, only to collapse from a stroke or silent illness without warning. That’s exactly the crisis Anina Agboola set out to address when she created Roots—a breakthrough app that gives people the power to track their health and catch problems early.
At the center of the platform is MyRootScore, a first-of-its-kind health scoring system designed to alert users before crisis strikes.
“Think of it like a health credit alert,” Agboola says. “Your MyRootScore tells you if you’re in the safe zone… or quietly sliding toward danger.”
The app works quietly in the background, analyzing users’ sleep, symptoms, blood pressure, stress levels, medications, and habits. It then translates this data into a single, clear insight. When your body starts to shift, the app gives you a nudge. When red flags begin to stack, it sends an alert.
*From Personal Loss to Public Health Innovation*
Agboola built Roots after a personal loss. Her father, the late Dr. Ayodele Ilupeju, was a respected Nigerian physician who passed away due to an undetected chronic condition. “We missed the signs,” Agboola says. “And if we could miss them, anyone could.”
With a background in media, public health communication, and digital product strategy, Agboola began building Roots to bridge the gap between silence and symptoms. The result is a human-centered app that gives users a real-time look into their health status and empowers them to act early.
*The Book Behind the Movement*
To support the Roots system, Agboola authored *The Chronic Care Blueprint: A New Era of Root-Cause Prevention and Whole-Person Wellness*. This book delivers an action-oriented approach to healing chronic illness, drawing from holistic models, lifestyle medicine, and integrative care.
Agboola’s vision is to make health tracking accessible to everyone, not just the tech-savvy elite. Roots will soon include translated guides, caregiver tools, and public health extensions. Future updates will expand its utility to women’s health, lifestyle coaching, and remote support for caregivers.
*Global Vision. Local Urgency. Universal Relevance*
Though developed between Nigeria, the U.S., and Canada, both Roots and *The Chronic Care Blueprint* are deeply grounded in Agboola’s African heritage. They reflect the reality of rising non-communicable diseases in communities where early screening is rare and late diagnosis is deadly.
With endorsements from digital health leaders and interest from global public health organizations, Agboola is positioning herself at the frontier of a smarter, more humane healthcare future—one that speaks early and saves lives. The tools exist. The warning signs are real. And with solutions like Roots, families now have a fighting chance to act before crisis strikes.
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Anina Agboola is a Nigerian-born digital health innovator and founder of HoliHealth. She is the creator of the Roots app and author of The Chronic Care Blueprint. She leads digital transformation at Tims Clinic, a 45-year-old legacy healthcare institution. Her work blends behaviour change, chronic disease prevention, and culturally intelligent technology to build scalable, human-centered solutions.
Learn more about The Chronic Care Blueprint and the Roots app at AninaAgboola.com. For more on the company behind the technology, visit HoliHealth.io.
