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Katie Leach-Kemon, Former Post-Graduate FellowMiddleburg, VA
Master of Public Health
University of Washington BA, History As one of the lead researchers on IHME’s annual global health financing report, Katie Leach-Kemon has negotiated for data with health ministries, charities, and international organizations worldwide. “Most agencies and nonprofit groups want to know more about where money in global health is being spent because they want to understand better how to establish funding priorities,” Katie said. Financing Global Health 2009: Tracking Development Assistance for Health revealed that nearly $200 billion had been spent since 1990 by public and private organizations on health projects in developing countries. It also showed that it was difficult to identify the final destination for a large percentage of that money. Katie used that lack of transparency as a way to open new doors for IHME. For example, she was able to secure new datasets that show spending by development banks and countries not captured in the 2009 report. Katie became interested in global development at a young age. Growing up in a small Virginia town, her father, a civil engineer, used to tell her stories about Nigeria, where he traveled hoping to find a job building roads. Years later, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, she saw firsthand the difficulties of spending aid money wisely. She hosted a Peace Corps radio program in the native Zarma language, trying to persuade people to improve their nutrition and hygiene. Some well-targeted public health projects she witnessed there had a significant impact, she said; others fell short. “Just giving malnourished children there the right vitamins and the right medications to fight intestinal worms and bacterial infections made a huge difference,” Katie said. Katie pursued her Master of Public Health because she wanted to better understand the mechanisms responsible for public health challenges in the developing world. At IHME, she has found that the way funding decisions are made can play an important role. In part because Niger has a very low recorded incidence of HIV, the country does not receive as much health funding as some healthier, wealthier countries with a large HIV disease burden, she said. Niger ranks 28th for total disease burden but is not even among the top 50 recipients of health aid. Through IHME’s financing research, Katie hopes governments, charities, and researchers find new ways to make funding choices that result in stronger health systems and healthier populations, and to provide aid recipients with a better understanding of trends in health aid. To continue her quest for more and better data, Katie has joined the IHME Data Team as the Data Development Manager, where she will build awareness of IHME’s work in countries around the world and assist IHME researchers in their data gathering efforts. In addition, Katie will continue to contribute to IHME’s global health financing research. Selected Publications:
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