Prof. Monika Arora is a public health scientist working in the area of Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) prevention and control and adolescent health. She is the Vice President (Research and Health Promotion) at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). She is the President of the NCD Alliance (2023-25), was the founding Chairperson of the South East Asia NCD Alliance (2020-23), and a Founding GB member of the Healthy India Alliance. Her areas of research include: designing, implementing, and evaluating: Group Randomized Trials, Behavioural Research including mixed methods research, Policy Research, Implementation Research, Rapid Programme Review and Impact Evaluation of Policies and Programmes. She has served as a member of the Institutional Ethics Committee of PHFI from 2014 – 2021. She coordinates a multi-disciplinary research team at PHFI. She Chairs the Research Management Committee of PHFI and is also a Member Secretary of the External Research Advisory Council of PHFI.
She has published extensively in the area of NCD Prevention and Control and her research outcomes have successfully informed National Health Programmes in India and in South East Asia Region. She serves on National and International Expert Committees on NCD Prevention and Control, Tobacco Control, Ending Childhood Obesity, WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs and has been a Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health.
She has been honoured with the Best Practices Award in Global Health in 2011 by the prestigious Global Health Council, for demonstrating best practice examples in the area of preventing NCDs among youth in community settings. She has also been awarded WHO Director General’s World No Tobacco Day Award in 2012, the Exceptional Women of Excellence 2018 Award by the Women Economic Forum (WEF) in April 2018 and Dr. Prem Menon outstanding service award in January 2018 by the World-India Diabetes Foundation (WIDF). She has recently been awarded Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine 2023 International Chapter Award for Northern Hemisphere recognizing her work in improving adolescent health in India and globally.
1. Professor of Health Promotion, PHFI
2. Founding Governing Board Member – Healthy India Alliance (India NCD Alliance)- https://ncdalliance.org/healthy-india-alliance-india-ncd-alliance
3. President: NCD Alliance, Geneva (2023-2025)- https://ncdalliance.org/who-we-are/steering-group
4. President Elect: NCD Alliance, Geneva (2021-2023)- https://ncdalliance.org/who-we-are/steering-group
5. Center for Global Health (CGH) International Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US, 2023 – 2026.
6. Past Chairperson: South East Asia Regional NCD Alliance (February 2020 – March 2023)
7. Founding Governing Board Member – Healthy India Alliance (India NCD Alliance)- https://ncdalliance.org/healthy-india-alliance-india-ncd-alliance
8. Member of the “International Pediatric Association’s Program area committee on NCDs and Mental Health” for the term 2023-2025
9. Co-chair of Global Research Network of Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, 2020-2023
10. Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran since January 15, 2021
11. Adjunct Faculty – Department of Community Medicine, Kasturba Medical College (KMC), MAHE, Manipal, India, since May 2019.
12. Visiting Faculty – London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for teaching a course on “Adolescent Health in Low and Middle-Income Countries” since 2010
13. Supervision of international students visiting PHFI on short-term fellowship from Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. Since 2016
14. Member of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), August 2021- July 2023.
15. Member of Society for Tobacco and Nicotine Research since 2010.
16. Honorary Member of Strategic Institute for Public Health Education and Research (SIPHER) since September 2020.
17. Member – Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), West Bengal, India, September 2016.
18. Member and Convener for Advocacy Forum for Tobacco Control (AFTC), a coalition of Indian NGOs and individuals working in the area of tobacco control in India, 2002-2015.
19. Member of Advocacy Committee of World Heart Federation, 2018 – 2022.
20. Member of the UKRI International Development Peer Review College since February 2018
21. Board Member of the NCD Alliance, Switzerland for the term 2019-2021.
22. Executive Director of HRIDAY (Health Related Information Dissemination amongst Youth) an NGO working on NCD prevention and control and hosts the secretariat for Healthy India Alliance (India NCD Alliance)
23. Regional Editor for South Asia for BMJ’s Tobacco Control Journal for the period January 2019-December 2021.
24. Commissioner on the Lancet Report “Our Future: A Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing” published in 2016.
25. Member of Second WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs formed by the WHO Director General for the term April 2019-April 2021.
26. Advisory Committee member of Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (Global Research Network) 2019-2020
27. Member of WHF Advocacy Expert Group formed by World Heart Federation, since May 2018.
28. Member of WHO Civil Society Working Group on the third High-level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on NCDs during February 2018-December 2018. http://www.who.int/ncds/governance/high-level-meetings/working-group-members/en/
29. Member of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO), formed by WHO Director-General during 2014-2016.
30. Member of the External Advisory Group for the Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) Framework, (WHO). March 2016
31. Member of Journal of Adolescent Health (JAH) Editorial Board of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) since 2015.
- PHFI
Involved in large scale group randomized trials in multiple health promotion settings, designing evidence based multicomponent intervention for behaviour change, epidemiological research, policy research and implementation science research. Involved with a multidisciplinary research team which conducts policy research, qualitative research and community trials with different population groups including adolescents, people living with NCDs and adults in community settings, school settings, and workplaces. Work closely with state and central government on Rapid Programme Reviews and Evaluation of national and state health programmes.
- Adolescent Health
- Substance Abuse
- Tobacco Control
- Health Policy and Planning
- Health Promotion
- Community Health
- Implementation Research
- Research Methods
- Qualitative Research
- Behaviour Change
- Health Impact Assessment