Dr. Priya Balasubramaniam is a public health practitioner and leader with over two decades of experience in large scale implementation research, education and program planning in academic, non-profit and government settings. Her interests and expertise cover universal health coverage, antimicrobial stewardship, the private sector and digital technology innovation directed at strengthening mixed health systems in low and middle-income countries.
She has a multi-disciplinary background and has assisted in shaping health system capacity and research in South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, the United States and Canada with field-based research as well as in strategic program development in developed and emerging heath markets. She is founding committee Member of the Leadership in Enhancing Antimicrobial Discovery coalition that works to develop leadership and build collaboration to advance science and shape policy for action against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – a focus on antimicrobial drug discovery and stewardship. Dr. Balasubramaniam is a co-Lead of the OASIS (One Health Antibiotic Stewardship in Society) consortia, winner of the MIT Trinity Challenge for AMR innovation, advancing One Health antimicrobial stewardship in informal health systems.
As senior public health specialist/ scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India, she was secretariat director for the government of India’s High Level Expert Group for Universal Health Coverage of the Universal Health Coverage Initiative one of India’s seminal health policy exercises on health system reform and part of the country’s 12th Five Year Plan.
Dr. Balasubramaniam leads the tripartite Innovations for UHC Collaborative to catalyse south-south dialogues around leveraging low-cost technological innovations and new models of healthcare in Asia and Africa. She is also co-founder of the Mutual Learning Platform for Mixed Health Systems launched in 2020 in response to the COVID 19 pandemic that convenes the private sector and public health stakeholders for evidence sharing and building interventional capacity for stronger health systems. Her projects on health technology includes a partnership with the Consortia of Affordable Technologies (CamTech) which mentors and seed-funds early stage social impact health innovations in Asia and Africa and the Grand Challenges Grant winner, the Biodiaspora Partnership that tracks and models infectious and vector borne disease through human movement patterns.
Dr. Balasubramaniam serves on the WHO expert committee on Private Sector Engagement for NCD Prevention and Control. She is the coordinating chair of the Private Sector in Health Thematic Working Group of Health Systems Global, a global community of over 2000 development and health professionals.
Dr. Balasubramaniam has authored several reports, policy briefs as well as peer-reviewed publications over her career as both a clinician and researcher. She works closely with municipal and state governments nationally and regionally and served on taskforces on primary healthcare constituted Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, government of India and is a member of the technical review group on urban health constituted by the Ministry of Urban Development.
She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Health Governance, was recently appointed to the editorial board of the newly launched Oxford Open Journal of Infrastructure and Health, and is regional editorial advisor to Oxford University Press’s Healthy Cities and Communities Encyclopaedia. She is a frequent advisor on health systems and policy to numerous multi-bi lateral organizations including WHO, IDRC Canada, the European Commission, the World Bank, the Wellcome Trust, USAID, DfID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
