Benjamin Palafox
BSc MSc
Research Fellow
in Pharmaceutical Policy & Economics
LSHTM
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom
I joined the Faculty of Public Health and Policy in 2008 to work on the ACTwatch Project examining access to malaria treatment, and have since have worked on several project related to access to care and health systems development in low- and middle-income countries, including the update to the Rockefeller Foundation's influential Good Health at Low Cost report. I have also worked on several projects examining the influence of health systems and access to care on cardiovascular disease and its risk factors: The Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological study (PURE) is one of the largest studies which has established prospective cohorts in 25 countries at all levels of economic development; and the recently-completed RESPOND project, which examined barriers to hypertension care faced by poor households in Malaysia and the Philippines. I am currently working on a mixed-methods project in India and Kenya that seeks to understand how e-pharmacy markets can be regulated appropriately to optimise the quality, safety and accessibility of medicines.
I obtained my first degree in Microbiology & Immunology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and subsequently completed the MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries at LSHTM. My previous public health experience has all been in the public sector. For several years, I worked on health financing and access to medicines issues at the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, an agency of the Philippine Department of Health. Just before returning to LSHTM, I was a senior analyst with the Public Health Agency of Canada working to improve access to data for surveillance and reporting activities.
My current areas of interest include pharmaceutical policy, and health systems and financing. This year I will be tutoring students on the Public Health for Development master's course, and teaching on the Basic Statistics for Public Health & Policy module for students on the School's Distance Learning MSc in Public Health.