Lalit Dandona
ProfessorLalit Dandona, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and Distinguished Research Professor at the Public Health Foundation of India. Dr. Dandona is Director of the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative, which is a collaboration between the Indian Council of Medical Research, Public Health Foundation of India, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and about 100 institutions across India. This Initiative has reported comprehensive disease burden and risk factors trends for every state of India over the past three decades, and is engaged with policy to improve population health. His research teams have carried out research in India for over 25 years on health and disease measurement and its application to policy, mapping of research output and funding, health system assessment including health economics, impact assessment of population health interventions, and population-based studies on a variety of communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and injuries.
Dr. Dandona serves on the International Advisory Board of The Lancet and on the editorial boards of several other journals. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, has served as scientific reviewer for over fifty journals and various international granting agencies. His profile was published in The Lancet in 2001 and in 2017. He received the 2006 Inaugural BioMed Central Research Award in Medicine for population health research in India. He has delivered prestigious orations on disease burden and population health, such as the G. Parthasarathi Oration and the Prof. P.N. Mari Bhat Memorial Lecture. He has served as a technical expert for professorial appointments at the University of Sydney, the National University of Singapore, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the American University of Beirut.
Dr. Dandona previously served as Professor and Chair of International Public Health at the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Senior Director of the George Institute for International Health India, and Professor and Director of the Centre for Human Development at the Administrative Staff College of India. He received his medical training at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He received his public health training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Dr. Dandona has taught researchers, policymakers and public health practitioners, and has served as a technical expert in public health and policy for governments, international organizations and funding agencies. A major focus of his current work is capacity building for population health research in less developed settings and strengthening systems that enable effective and wise use of evidence for policy decisions.