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Lancet Commission on Racism and Child Health Team

People

Commission Chair

Editor

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Delan Devakumar

Professor of Global Child Health, Institute for Global Health, UCL

Paediatrics, public health, migration, racism, violence

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Pamela Das

Senior Executive Editor at The Lancet, Co-founder of The Lancet's group for racial equity (GracE)

Public health medicine, health equity

Meet the Steering Committee

Abi Deivanayagam
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NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Public Health, UCL, Campaigner

Abi is a doctor, academic, and campaigner specialising in public health, environmental inequalities, and racial justice. She is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Public Health, undertaking her specialist training in Liverpool. Her work focuses on the extractive industries that fuel climate breakdown, the public health impacts of policing, and community-led solutions. She is passionate about a public health that is abolitionist, rooted in community-led care, and free from structural state violence. Her work is guided by the principles of Land-based Peoples and abolitionists.

Sonora English
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Researcher, Institute for Global Health UCL

Sonora conducts research at Race & Health focused on racism and colonialism’s health impacts on young people. She currently works on the Envisioning Environmental Equity initiative, where she conducts research on climate change, health and racial justice and anti-colonialism, and supports creative engagement with young people on these topics. She also works on climate change and health policy with UCL Public Policy and has recently joined the UK Youth Climate Coalition as a community organiser. Outside of her environmental justice work, Sonora is interested in public health approaches to human trafficking and exploitation that take a holistic approach to health and wellbeing and promote structural change.

Lu Gram
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Senior Research Fellow, UCL

Lu is a leading researcher on women's and communities' empowerment in low- and middle-income countries and a specialist in collective action for health and gender equality. He is a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow and recipient of a Naughton Clifts-Matthew grant. Over his career in Global Health, Dr Gram has lived and worked in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana, Nigeria, DRC, Uganda, and Kenya with research partners from World Health Organization, Saving Newborn Lives, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr Gram regularly consults for universities and international NGOs and has worked for Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Population Council, and WHO. Dr Gram is a fellow of the Institute for the Future of Work.

Mita Huq
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Researcher, Institute for Global Health, UCL

Mita is an early career researcher currently working on issues of racism, discrimination, climate change and health. Through the Envisioning Environmental Equity project, she engages issues of racism, discrimination, and colonialism on those most impacted by climate change. Her past work includes research with NGOs and academia about gender-based violence, health, and intervention design. She has experience working with artistic methods, and is particularly passionate about supporting migrant communities. These experiences have informed her focus on structural change as a guiding principle to public health.

Meet the Commissioners

Rob Aldridge
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Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader for the Clinical Informatics team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Rob Aldridge is a public health physician who aims to improve health equity through the application of data science and public health research. His portfolio has validated methods to link and analyse large health and social care datasets to understand the health needs of people experiencing homelessness, substance use, imprisonment or migration.

Laia Becares
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Professor of Social Sciences and Health King's College London

Laia's research explores pathways by which the discrimination and marginalisation of people and places lead to social and health inequities. Her work focuses on examining the association between othering, oppression, and health to understand discrimination patterns people's health and social outcomes, and that of their children. 

Báltica Cabieses
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Director of the Centre of Global Intercultural Health, Universidad del Desarrollo

Báltica is a Professor of social epidemiology and director of the Center of Global Intercultural Health (CeSGI) at the Faculty of Medicine Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo. She was a nurse-midwife, and a national and international consultant of health equity, health of migrants and implementation science in socially and culturally diverse communities, Advisor to WHO, PAHO, OIM, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Development of Chile, and to advisor various public and private institutions.

Ananda Galappatti
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Co-Founder and Co-Director of MHPSS.net

Ananda is a medical anthropologist and a practitioner in the field of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for situations of conflict, disaster and other adverse social conditions. His portfolio grapples with improving access to knowledge and skills, building collaborative networks and enhancing coherence within the MHPSS field in Sri Lanka and globally. He has started multiple initiatives, including his current work at MHPSS.net, an online platform (hosted by the Institute for Health Policy, Sri Lanka).

Weeam Hammoudeh
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Assistant Professor at the Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University

Weeam is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Community and Public Health. She is also co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, and her academic focus is on understanding how political and social transformations impact health, psychosocial wellbeing, health and social systems, and population processes, particularly in Palestine. She works on understanding the structural, social and political determinants of health, and has worked in Palestine and among refugee populations in Jordan. 

Iheoma U. Iruka
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Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at FPG UNC Chapel Hill

Iheoma is a Research Professor in the Department of Public Policy and the Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC Chapel Hill. She leads initiatives that ensure the thriving of minoritised children and children from low-income households by promoting anti-bias, anti-racist, and culturally grounded research, programmes, and policy. She serves on numerous national and local boards and committees, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the American Psychological Association’s Board of Educational Affairs, and the National Science Foundation.

Ayesha Kadir
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Senior Humanitarian Health Advisor, Save the Children

Ayesha is a paediatrician and Senior Humanitarian Health Advisor for Save the Children. She works in clinical care, public health research, health policy, and advocacy. Her clinical work is in paediatric emergency medicine and social paediatrics in Europe and in humanitarian settings. Her research, advocacy, and policy work focuses on the effects of migration, armed conflict, and the intersections of different forms of violence on children and families, and in finding effective ways to protect and promote children's and families' health, wellbeing, and rights.

Rajat Khosla
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Director of the International Institute on Global Health (UNU-IIGH)

Rajat is the Director of the International Institute on Global Health (UNU-IIGH). He works on global health and inequalities through the intersections of research, policy, and practice. Over the last twenty years his research has focused on global health, development, gender equality, health equity, and human rights. He has published widely in academic publications and writes regularly on global health issues. His present research commitments include racism and global health; social justice; accountability; and gender and digital health governance.

Seung-Sup Kim
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Associate Professor, Dept. of Environmental Health Sciences, Seoul National University

Seung-Sup is an epidemiologist with a medical background. His research focused on social determinants of health among socially disadvantaged populations, including people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBT people, and precarious workers. He is currently working as a PI of the DiSEPA (Disability, Social Environment, and Premature Aging) Study, to understand the social environment, health of people with disabilities and their family members in South Korea.

Priscila de Morais Sato
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Adjunct Professor at the School of Nutrition of the Federal University of Bahia

Priscila is an adjunct professor at the School of Nutrition of the Federal University of Bahia, and a member of the Race & Health Group. Priscila has experience with qualitative and mixed methods to study food insecurity among populations in social vulnerability. She works mainly on the following themes: intersectionality, traditional communities, climate change, and eating practices.

Michelle Morse
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Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Commissioner for Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness at New York City Department of Mental Health & Hygiene

Michelle is an internal medicine and public health doctor who works to achieve health equity through global solidarity, social medicine and anti-racism education, and activism. She is an internal medicine hospitalist, Co-Founder of EqualHealth, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. In September 2019 she began a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellowship in Washington, DC and was placed with the Committee on Ways and Means, Majority Staff.

Jaime Miranda
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Professor, University of Sydney

Jaime is a Professor and Head of School of the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health. His work brings together epidemiological and health policy aspects of chronic non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and mental health. He has had a long career history of public health research, teaching, and more.

Rudzani Muloiwa
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Professor, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the Faculty of Health Science of the University of Cape Town

He has served as both Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Student Affairs and recently as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT. He is a current member of the Vaccines for Africa Initiative (VACFA) within the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT. Rudzani has served as a member of the South Africa NITAG (NAGI) and a steering committee member of the Global Pertussis Initiative (GPI). Prof Muloiwa has been on the Board of World Vision South Africa since 2012.

Heizal Nagginda
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Founder and Team Leader of Climate Operation

Heizal is a climate and environmental activist from Uganda. She is the founder of Climate Operation, a youth led organization whose mission is to educate Ugandan children and communities about climate change and its intersection with other social issues such as health and gender. Heizal is passionate about creating a more inclusive space where young people’s voices are amplified, specifically around how the climate crisis has not only impacted them but what they are doing to ensure that they advocate for a safer, cleaner and fairer environment.

Sarah-Jane Paine
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Associate Professor in Māori Health at Te Kupenga Hauora Māori and the Research Director for Growing Up in New Zealand

Sarah-Jane (Tūhoe) is an experienced Kaupapa Māori researcher who uses epidemiology as a tool to investigate ethnic inequities in health and the determinants of health across the life-course.Sarah-Jane is an Associate Professor in Māori Health at Te Kupenga Hauora Māori and the Research Director for Growing Up in New Zealand – the largest contemporary longitudinal study in Aotearoa New Zealand.  She teaches Māori Health and Kaupapa Māori research methods across a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland.

Javier M. Rodgríguez
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Associate Professor, School of Social Science, Policy & Evaluation, Claremont Graduate University

Javier's research incorporates theoretical and methodological principles from economics, demography, psychology, and public health to study the political causes and consequences of socioeconomic and racial disparities in health. He investigates how political actors and institutions, such as presidents and political parties, influence health outcomes at the aggregate and individual levels, and how these health outcomes in turn determine political processes such as policy-making and electoral outcomes.

Nidhi Sabharwal
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Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA)

Nidhi is currently an Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) in New Delhi, India. Nidhi has studied inter-group inequalities across human development, focusing on the role of caste and gender-based discrimination, access to social protection policies in health, and affirmative action measures in education. Nidhi’s current research area lies in access and equity in higher education, with a focus on issues of college readiness, diversity, social inclusion and higher educational success of socially and economically disadvantaged students.

Arianne Shahvisi
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Senior Lecturer in Ethics at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Arianne is senior lecturer in ethics at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, where her research focusses on applied philosophy, especially in relation to gender, race, and migration. She holds a PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. She writes regularly for the London Review of Books, and her essays have also appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, and the Economist, among others. Her first book ‘Arguing for a Better World’ was published in 2023.

Jonathan Wells
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Professor of Anthropology and Paediatric Nutrition
UCL GOS

Jonathan completed a degree in social anthropology, an MPhil in biological anthropology, and a PhD in biological anthropology and nutrition, all at the University of Cambridge. Following post-doctoral research at the MRC Dunn Nutrition Unit in Cambridge, he moved to UCL Institute of Child Health where he has been successively Lecturer in Nutrition, Reader in Pediatric Nutrition, and finally Professor of Anthropology and Pediatric Nutrition.

Sana Younus
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Research Fellow, Baylor College of Medicine

Sana works in mental health following the completion of her training in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. She is currently a research fellow in the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry from Baylor College of Medicine. Within the field she has a particular interest in Trauma and stress related disorders, Eating disorders and Internet gaming disorders. She has a special interest in improving accessibility of mental health services and addressing stigma associated with mental health disorders. She plans to further her career in the domain of global mental health policy and mental health advocacy for children and adolescent.

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