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. 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.
Research at PHFI
Since its inception PHFI has worked to establish a robust evidence base for public health, in partnership with national and international institutions, by advancing policy and programme relevant research in prioritised health areas. PHFI has been undertaking projects in multiple areas including epidemiology and control of infectious and chronic diseases, maternal and child health, health systems, and social determinants of health.
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Centres of Excellence
PHFI has set up five Centres of Excellence to raise awareness and strengthen research, training and education in the high priority area of public health in India.
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Research Governance
PHFI has a strong research governance mechanism that has evolved over a decade and outlines the principles of good governance that apply to all research undertaken within the remit of PHFI.
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Research Collaborations (National & International)
PHFI researchers are collaborating with a range of stakeholders including the national and state governments, academia, civil society, global foundations and the private sector.
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Research Recognitions and Awards
PHFI’s multi-disciplinary talent pool is well recognised and our colleague and teams win some very competitive bids for grants and are also recognised at the individual level for the work in contributing towards public health.
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Training Division
The Training Division at PHFI focuses on implementing various capacity building initiatives that aim to upgrade the knowledge, skills and core competencies of Healthcare Professionals since the year 2010. Various initiatives have been formalized and implemented for healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds in the areas of chronic conditions, palliative care, healthcare quality, health program management, health technology, occupational health and evaluation & monitoring of health programs.
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Training Programmes in Chronic Conditions
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The laboratory at PHFI is equipped to deal with all aspects of clinical biochemistry and basic genetics research. The lab is equipped with: Chemistry analyzers c311, immunochemistry analyzer e411 from ROCHE, D-10 from Bio-Rad, Electrolyte analyzer from Caretium, microplate reader from Bio-Rad, Spectrophotometer from Thermo, Gas chromatography from Agilent.
About Health Promotion Division (HPD)
The Health Promotion Division at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) aims to nurture interdisciplinary health promotion research, programming and practice and focuses on promoting multi-sectoral coordination. The Division adopts a settings based approach to design health communication, health literacy, and community outreach activities that mainstream health promotion policy and practice. The Division works on designing theory-based interventions to develop healthy settings in diverse contexts and generates evidence to support effective messaging, programming and policy development. The Division brings together approaches ranging from health education, advocacy, community empowerment, legislative reforms, fiscal policy change to organizational change and strengthening health services to address social inequalities in health.
The Division undertakes rigorous evaluation of outcomes and processes to assess impact of these health promotion interventions on population health and wellbeing. Research on impact of programmes in influencing health of individuals and population is a core activity undertaken at the Health Promotion Division. Represented by multi-disciplinary team of Epidemiologists, public health experts, clinicians, behavioral scientists, nutritionists, qualitative researchers and heath communication experts.
Brochure Implementation of Peer Education Programme in i-Saathiya
Impact Stories
Sex Selection in Pregnancy
Dr. Sutapa B. Neogi (Principal Investigator), IIPH-Delhi (Relevance to MDG 3A and 5A)
Objective: Sex selection is a major social concern in India. The use of indigenous medicines purportedly influencing the probability of having a son is reported to be a common practice... Read More
Programme for Improving Mental Health CarE (PRIME)
Dr. Rahul Shidhaye (Principal Investigator), CCCI, PHFI
Objective: The Programme for Improving Mental Health CarE (PRIME) was launched in 2011 to generate evidence on the implementation and scaling up of... Read More
mHealthcare
Dr. Ajay Vamadevan (Project Coordinator), CCCI, PHFI
Objective: The rising burden of chronic diseases, and their co-morbidity are a major challenge for the Indian health system, requiring life-long therapy. Innovative approaches such as task-shifting/sharing... Read More
Diabetic Retinopathy
Prof. GVS Murthy (Principal Investigator), Director, IIPH-Hyderabad
Objective: Of the projected 69 million people with diabetes in India, 6 million people are estimated to have sight threatening Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). This is an important and avoidable cause of blindness... Read More
Global burden of Disease
Dr. Lalit Dandona (Principal Investigator), PHFI
Objective: While programmes for disease prevention and control as well as health promotion are underway in many countries, often, they are historically and politically shaped, rather than reflecting... Read More
India’s tobacco-related fiscal policies
Dr. Sakthivel Selvaraj (Principal Investigator), PHFI
Objective: India has a complex tobacco tax structure; there has been a growing interest from state governments to increase taxes on tobacco products as a measure to curtail consumption, although the impact of the same on revenue and consumption was unexplored... Read More
Yoga-CaRe trial
Prof. Prabhakaran D (Principal Investigator), CCCI, PHFI
Objective: Many of the ancient traditions of India such as Yoga can be an answer to the spiralling health care costs and can be used innovatively to address the emerging epidemic of chronic diseases in India... Read More
Yoga for Tobacco Cessation
Dr. Bidyut Sarkar (Principal Investigator), PHFI
Objective: To evaluate, if a brief community outreach intervention (a single session advice of 15 min to stop tobacco use combined with training in yogic breathing exercise) delivered by health workers to promote tobacco cessation in India... Read More