Priya Balasubramaniam Kakkar

Biography

Priya Balasubramaniam Kakkar is a public health researcher with areas of interest in health systems, public policy implementation and design, health politics and monitoring and evaluation. At PHFI, she leads the Universal Health Coverage Initiative www.uhc-india.org one of India’s seminal health policy exercises on health system reform. Her other current projects include spearheading the research agenda for PHFI’s Urban Health Report (spanning disease dynamics, urban governance and health provision) and research on oral health. As founding partner of Future Health Inc., Singapore, she is also engaged in leveraging social entrepreneurship to address inequities in health care delivery, building research capacity incorporating evaluation philosophy and techniques in core public health training, and exploring the role of diplomacy in health systems strengthening. Priya has a multi-disciplinary background across multiple health domains in India, Canada, the US and Mexico, in international health, public health programme design, evaluation and applied research. She was formerly based in Toronto, Canada where she managed health policy and strategic research initiatives at the Keenan Research Centre, (Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute.) of St. Michaels Hospital, Toronto. She has worked in various management and research capacities with the Toronto Public Health Department, the Voluntary Health Service Foundation, Chennai and University of Texas Health Science Centre, Houston. Priya’s academic background includes training in Public Policy and Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, International Health from the University of Texas Health Science Centre, Houston and degrees in Dental Public Health and Dentistry from the University of Toronto and Annamalai University, India.

Research Interest

Public Health