Dr Dina Balabanova MSc PhD

Senior Lecturer in Health Systems/Policy

I am Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Development and in the Health Economics and Systems Analysis Group (HESA). In 2001-2006, I worked in the Health Systems Development programme at the LSHTM.

I graduated from Sofia University in 1993 with a BA in sociology and BA in early childhood psychology. In 1994-5, I undertook a Masters in Social Policy and Planning at the London School of Economics. In 2001 I completed a PhD at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, working with Martin McKee (ECOHOST), examining health financing reform in Bulgaria, funded by the EU PHARE programme. Based on primary data, the study addressed willingness and ability of the population to pay under newly implemented compulsory health insurance, self-reported health and illness behaviour; institutional framework, and values influencing reform.

In 1999-2001, I was regional policy adviser for Oxfam, covering Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Russia, and based in the Eastern Europe/ Former Soviet Union/ Middle East Regional Centre in Oxford. The role involved advising on programme planning, Oxfam's regional and global strategies for work on health; and designing research for monitoring the impact of economic transition on population's access to basic health care and education. Other previously held positions were with the World Bank (1997), LSHTM, and with a leading Bulgarian research agency.

Affiliation

Teaching

I have developed, and now organise and teach on the Health System module at the LSHTM. I also supervise PhD and MSc students.

Research

I am leading the Good Health at Low Cost project (funded by the Rockefeller Foundation) seeking to examine the contribution of health systems to good health drawing on multi-method studies in five countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kyrgyz Republic, Thailand, and the state of Tamil Nadu (India). I am also working on a rapid appraisal of diabetes care services and health outcomes in several countries in the former Soviet Union.

In the past several years I have been increasingly involved in evaluation of health systems responses to the growing burden of conditions requiring complex inputs in terms of treatment, follow-up and care processes. This was done using probe conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis, maternal care, cervical cancer. I am also involved in evaluation of global health initiatives (a 3-year evaluation of the International Health Partnership).

Previously I have worked on access to care and its determinants, health system reform in middle and low income countries, informal payments and mechanisms to increase affordability and availability of care in low resource settings (e.g. scaling up community based financing in the Caucasus).

 

Research areas

  • Health care financing
  • Health care policy
  • Health inequalities
  • Health sector development
  • Health systems

Disciplines

  • Policy analysis
  • Sociology

Disease and Health Conditions

  • Chronic disease

Other interests

  • Access To Care
  • Access To Medicines
  • CEE
  • FSU
  • Former Soviet Union
  • Governance
  • Health And Development
  • Health And Transition
  • Health Care Systems Evaluation
  • Health Sector Reform
  • Informal Payments
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