See profiles below for more information on contributors to Health Policy and Planning Debated:
Jacqueline Bhaba is Director of Research at the Francois Bagnoud Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights and Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Sanghita Bhattacharyya is a Senior Public Health Specialist at the Public Health foundation of India. She has a decade of experience in maternal and child health and has worked closely with civil society organisations and state governments. She primarily works around the issue of health systems research, with a special interest in maternal and child health.
Karl Blanchet is a Lecturer in Health Systems Research at the International Centre for Eye Health and International Centre for Evidence in Disability at LSHTM. He has extensive experience in health system strengthening in Asia (Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal) and Africa (Niger, Rwanda, Ghana, Togo, Mali, Somaliland) and is specifically interested in studying sustainability and resilience issues in international development and more specifically in fragile states and complex emergencies.
Josephine Borghi is Health Economics Editor of Health Policy and Planning and Senior Lecturer in Health Economics and Policy at LSHTM. She is interested in the evaluation of health financing reforms, including mechanisms to increase health care coverage and financial protection among the informal sector and supply side incentives such as performance based financing and the implications of these reforms for governments and the population. She works on a range of research projects in Africa.
Lara Brearley is a Senior Health Policy & Research Adviser at Save the Children UK. She leads the organisation’s advocacy on universal health coverage (UHC) and health in post-2015, and has authored various reports, including a recent collaboration with WHO, UNICEF and the Rockefeller Foundation on equity in pathways towards UHC. Lara also provides technical support to Save the Children country programmes on health financing advocacy and broader RMNCH policy engagement.
Svea Closser is a medical anthropologist whose research focuses on the interaction between global health policy and discourse and local health systems. She has been studying polio eradication since 2005. Her book, Chasing Polio in Pakistan, explores why eradication is so difficult in Pakistan, one of the last countries with endemic polio. She has also done research exploring the effects of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative on Primary Health Care and routine immunization at sites across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Richard Coker is former Editor-in-Chief of Health Policy and Planning, Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and visiting Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore.
Saugato Datta is a Vice President at ideas42. He works with partners to design, test and scale programs and products that use behavioural economics to benefit poor people in developing countries. Saugato previously wrote about economics for The Economist and edited the third edition of Economics: Making Sense of the Modern Economy, an edited selection of Economist articles about economics. He was also a researcher at the World Bank in Washington, DC. and has published papers on discrimination in Indian labour markets and the effects of infrastructure development in developing countries.
Lucy Gilson is Health Policy Editor of Health Policy and Planning and Professor of Health Policy and Systems at the University of Cape Town and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include: equity in health and health care; governance in health systems; health care funding and organisation; and decision-making at policy, managerial and household levels. During her career she has played a leading role in developing the field of health policy analysis, and currently manages a continental initiative to strengthen training in this field. She has conducted collaborative research with colleagues in other countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, and in Asia.
Tamara Hafner was formerly Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, American University, Washington, D.C.
Solenn Honorine is a former journalist who now works as a communications officer on the HIV and TB projects of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). MSF currently supports HIV care for over 340.000 people across 32 countries.
Joan Kalyango is Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Pharmacy at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Uganda.
Lydia Kapiriri is Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University.
Warren Kaplan is Assistant Professor of International Health at Boston University School of Public Health, where he teaches courses in pharmaceutical policy, intellectual property policy, and access to medicines and antimicrobial resistance. He consults extensively with the World Health Organization, UNITAID, UNICEF (South Africa, Mozambique), the World Bank, and the Clinton Foundation (Rwanda, Kenya) on a variety of projects involving access to medicines. Dr. Kaplan is also a member of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Pharmaceutical Policy.
Albert Kilian is Technical Director and Co-Founder of Tropical Health LLP. His experience includes 15 years in developing countries health systems working at district and national levels and five years as technical advisor to the Ugandan Ministry of Health. He has carried out malaria and public health consultancies in over 15 countries in Africa and Asia. Albert is a key member of the Roll Back Malaria M&E Reference Group and is globally recognised for his innovative work on M&E
Adam Koon is a Research Fellow and PhD student in Health Policy and Systems Research in the Department of Global Health and Development at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Margaret Kruk is Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health where she directs the Better Health Systems Initiative, a research and policy program on global health care coverage and quality. Dr. Kruk’s research focuses on health care utilisation and quality, health financing, and population preferences for health services in low-income countries. She collaborates with governments and academics in several African countries, most recently Tanzania, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, and Ghana.
Gina Lagomarsino is Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director at Results for Development Institute (R4D), where she focuses on health system design and financing. She leads work aimed at expanding health coverage in low- and middle-income countries, with a particular interest in how to create vibrant health markets that include high-quality, innovative private care providers that are accessible to people regardless of income.
Shelley Lees is a Medical Anthropologist with 23 years experience in research on HIV, STIs, gender based violence, cancer, and maternal health, and 10 years experience based in East Africa. She has collaborated on and coordinated both large and small studies, bringing anthropological expertise to multi-disciplinary public health intervention research, as well exploring the impact of public health research on people and their communities.
Xiaoyun Liu is Associate Professor of Health Systems Research at the China Center for Health Development Studies at Peking University. His research interests focus on health systems and health policy, especially in relation to health financing and health human resources. He has extensive research and consultant experiences in developing countries (China, Vietnam, India) in the areas of health insurance, human resources for health, and TB control.
Richard Matzopoulos is a Specialist Scientist at the Medical Research Council’s Burden of Disease Research Unit and an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town’s School of Public Health and Family Medicine. He currently advises the Provincial Government of the Western Cape on its interpersonal violence and injury prevention and surveillance activities through the Burden of Disease Reduction Project. Richard is one of two South African focal points for the international Violence Prevention Alliance and he Chairs the Provincial Government’s transversal Injury Prevention Working Group.
Patricia Mechael is senior advisor, mHealth at the United Nations Foundation, faculty at the Earth Institute and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and former executive director of the mHealth Alliance. She has dedicated nearly 20 years to catalysing global health movements, including 14 years unlocking the potential of mobile technology and driving ground-breaking innovation to solve global health challenges. She is the recipient of the Knowledge for the World Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Johns Hopkins University, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and co-editor of the book: mHealth in Practice: Mobile technology for health promotion in the developing world.
Claudio A. Méndez is Assistant Professor of Health Systems and Policy at the Instituto de Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Austral de Chile. Currently, he is conducting research on people-centred health systems, governance and policy implementation in Chile. He is also collaborating on privatization policies in Latin American health systems. His research and teaching interests are focused on low- and middle-income country health systems, health policies and global health.
Modi Mwatsama is Director, Global Health at the UK Health Forum where she leads on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and global health. She is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and is currently undertaking a part-time Doctor of Public Health on issue prioritisation, policy development and implementation in the field of NCDs at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Marsha Orgill is a Researcher and Lecturer in the Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town. Her primary research interest is health policy analysis, with a specific interest in the science of implementation. She is working on a variety of projects in South Africa in this regard. She is part of an Emerging Leader programme run by the Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA).
Valéry Ridde is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (Montreal School of Public Health) at Montreal University and researcher at the Research Center of Montreal University Hospital Center (CRCHUM). See http://www.equitesante.org. He is the recipient of a CIHR new investigator salary award.
Emilie Robert is a Ph.D. candidate in public health at the University of Montreal (Canada). She is a senior fellow of the Global Health Research Capacity Strengthening Program (GHR-CAPS). She holds a Masters in Development Studies from the Institute of Economical and Social Development Studies (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France). Emilie is specialised in the evaluation of health programs.
Kabir Sheikh is Health Systems Research Editor of Health Policy & Planning, Senior Research Scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India and director of the Health Governance Hub – PHFI’s interdisciplinary programme of health policy & systems research and research capacity building. He is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and holds visiting faculty positions at the University of Melbourne, BRAC University Dhaka and the University of Delhi. In 2011, he led the technical team (citizen and private sector participation) for the Government of India commissioned report on Universal Health Coverage. He is involved with global and national initiatives to strengthen the field of health policy & systems research and maximise its relevance for real-world change.
Jeremy Shiffman is Health Policy Editor of Health Policy and Planning and Professor of Public Administration and Policy at American Univerity, Washington, D.C. He is a political scientist by training and researches the politics of health policy and administration in poor countries. He is interested in agenda setting in health: why some issues receive priority while others are neglected.
Altynay Shigayeva is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto.
Robert Steinglass is Immunization Senior Advisor for JSI, where he has led its immunization efforts, funded by USAID, at MCHIP (currently), IMMUNIZATIONbasics, BASICS and REACH, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at UI-FHS (currently) and ARISE. For 10 years before JSI, he was WHO EPI Technical Officer in North Yemen, Oman and Nepal. He has worked in 50 developing countries on strengthening routine immunization as an integral part of the health system and introducing new vaccines. He is a current or recently past member of many advisory committees at WHO, GAVI, Institute of Medicine, and elsewhere.
Joy Townsend is Emeritus Professor of Economics, Epidemiology and Health Services Research at LSHTM. She works on tobacco economics and policy and is a consultant to the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. She is also an Honorary Secretary and Trustee of the National Heart Forum. Joy has received medals from the World Health Organisation for contribution to world health for work on the economics of tobacco.
Ursula Trummer, Ph.D, MSc., is Head of the Center for Health and Migration and Executive Director of Trummer & Novak-Zezula OG. She lectures at various universities, as well as being an independent expert to the European Commission, DG SANCO and DG Research, and a reviewer for the German Ministry for Education and Science and for the Norwegian Research Council.
Kate Tulenko is the Director of CapacityPlus, the US government’s flagship global health workforce program. She also serves as Senior Director for Health Systems Innovation at IntraHealth International. She is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public and previously coordinated the World Bank’s Africa Health Workforce Program and has served on expert panels for the World Health Organization, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Aspen Institute.
Arjun Vasan is a Program Officer at Results for Development Institute (R4D) and works across the organisation’s portfolio of global health projects, including the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) and the work of R4D’s health analytics team. At R4D, he has worked with organizations, such as The World Bank, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI), PEPFAR, and major pharmaceutical companies. Prior to R4D, he worked as a global health consultant and also held multiple positions at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), where he advised the Government of India on ways to expand pediatric treatment for HIV/AIDS.
Gill Walt is Emeritus Professor of International Health Policy at LSHTM and was co-editor of Health Policy and Planning between 1985 – 1998. She has a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine she worked in the Ministry of Health in Mozambique, and worked for short periods in many countries in Southern Africa, as well as other parts of the developing world. She has published widely, taking a special interest in the role of international organisations in health. Her best known books are Health Policy: an introduction to process and power and Making Health Policy.
Sophie Witter is Professor of International Health Financing and Health Systems at the Institute for International Health and Development, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. She is leading research on health worker incentives and human resources policies as part of the ReBUILD research consortium, focussing on health system reconstruction post-conflict. She is a health economist with 25 years of experience in Africa, Asia and transitional countries. Her areas of interest include increasing financial access to essential health care and setting the right incentives for providers. She has led complex evaluations, using mixed methods, and historical analysis, as well as providing policy guidance.
Haja Wurie is a health systems researcher working on the Human Resource for Health (HRH) project, part of the ReBUILD research consortium, in Sierra Leone, generating evidence based findings that can influence policy and ultimately strengthen the health system in Sierra Leone. The main goal of the HRH project is to understand the post-conflict dynamics for these workers – and ultimately how to reach and maintain incentive environments for them to support access to affordable, appropriate and equitable health services. She is also a Lecturer at the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences in Sierra Leone.
Prashant Yadav is a Senior Research Fellow at the William Davidson Institute (WDI) and Director of the Health Care Research Initiative at WDI. He also holds faculty appointments at the Ross School of Business and the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. He serves as an advisor in the area of pharmaceutical supply chains to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank, World Health Organization, UK Department for International Development, and many other global health organizations.
