Advancing progress on health and chronic conditions in a polycrisis
Professor Anthony Rodgers
Professor Rodgers has a track record in cardiovascular disease prevention, innovation and public-private partnerships, with an interest in scale-able interventions to address major risks to health. He is currently Acting Director of the Cardiovascular Division at The George Institute, Australia and Chair of Clinical Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College of London.
After graduating in medicine in the United Kingdom he trained in epidemiology and public health in New Zealand. He was the Principal Author of the 2002 World Health Report, the main annual publication for WHO. Professor Rodgers has led developments of an affordable four-in-one cardiovascular combination pill ('polypill'). He led a clinical trial program in economically developed and developing countries, funded by the Wellcome Trust, European Union and others.
Professor Rodgers also developed a world first cell phone based smoking cessation programme for youth, which disseminated proven health support messages in an age-appropriate, affordable medium. Over 6,000 patients were involved in clinical trials that demonstrated a 50% increase in quit rates. The service has been rolled out by Departments of Health in NZ, UK and India, with over 2 million users to date. A follow-on program delivering cognitive behavioural therapy for depression prevention was successfully trialled among 1,200 at-risk teenagers.
Is the Hypertension Polypill the breakthrough we need for global blood pressure control?
Pratishtha Singh
Pratishtha Singh is a public health researcher in the Injury Division at The George Institute for Global Health, India. Her research focuses on road traffic injuries and burns, with a strong emphasis on equity, gender, and structural determinants of health. She is particularly interested in how mobility systems intersect with gender and social marginalisation, and has previously worked on reproductive health, gender-based violence, and health systems strengthening. Pratishtha is an incoming PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where her research will explore sustainable solutions to improve transit safety for women and transgender persons in urban India. She is an Emerging Voices for Global Health (2024) Fellow of Health Systems Global.
Consumer and Community Advisory Committee
Health systems strengthening for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
Dr Devaki Nambiar
Devaki Nambiar is Program Director, Healthier Societies Strategy at the George Institute for Global Health India with appointments at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India, the University of New South Wales, Australia, and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA.
She is a Health Policy and Systems Researcher (HPSRer) with over two decades of experience working in India and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries on decision-maker demand-driven research, postgraduate teaching in HPSR, as well as technical assistance with an emphasis on community action for health, social exclusion, health equity and health for all. She is a former Fulbright, Fogarty, and NIH scholar, and Fellow of the Wellcome Trust/Department of Biotechnology India Alliance. She advises the WHO on health inequality monitoring, national programme re-orientation, and guideline development to leave no one behind.
She serves on the Lancet-Chatham House Commission on Improving Population Health post COVID-19, the Lancet Commission on Sustainable Healthcare, and advises Lancet Commissions on Women and Cancer as well as on Reimagining India's Health System. She is a member of the People's Health Movement and the Medico Friends Circle. She also serves on the Board of Health Systems Global and the Research Advisory Board of the Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru, India. Dr. Nambiar received her doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009 and is a recipient of an Emerging Leader Award from the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.
Neena Joshi
Neena Joshi is a Senior Project Manager at The George Institute for Global Health. She leads the Social Participation for Health, Engagement, Research and Empowerment (SPHERE) consortium, which brings together civil society, health and academic organizations providing support for social participation and community action for health in and around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Neena is a global health professional with over five years of experience working at international organizations, think tanks and in academia.
Neena was previously part of the UHC2030 Secretariat, and she has a strong background in multilateral engagement and global health research. Neena holds a Master of Science in Global Health from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and is originally from Chicago, Illinois. She is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark.