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Emmanuela Gakidou

Emmanuela Gakidou, MSc, PhD, is Associate Professor of Global Health and Director of Education and Training at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. She also leads the Institute’s research activities in the area of evaluations.

In addition, she is currently a Faculty Affiliate for the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences at the University of Washington.

Dr. Gakidou’s research interests are impact evaluation and methods development for analytical challenges in global health. Examples of current research projects include the evaluation of Avahan – a large HIV-prevention program in India; the development of a time series of educational attainment for all countries from 1960 to present; the measurement of adult mortality in developing countries; and the measurement of economic status through health surveys.

Before joining IHME, Dr. Gakidou was a research associate at the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Prior to moving to Harvard University, Dr. Gakidou worked as a health economist at the World Health Organization (WHO), where she led work on the measurement of health inequalities.

Apart from being instrumental in the founding of IHME, Dr. Gakidou is passionate about training the next generation of leaders in the field of health metrics and evaluation. She created and is directing the two fellowship programs at IHME, and is coordinating the overall curriculum and degree programs the Institute offers through the Department of Global Health.

Originally from Greece, Dr. Gakidou moved to the US for higher education and received her degrees – a Bachelor of Arts, a Master’s of International Health Economics, and a PhD in Health Policy – from Harvard University.

Selected Publications:

1. Gakidou E, Murray CJL, Frenk J. Health inequalities and social group differences: what should we measure? Bulletin of the World Health Organization.1999; 77(7):537-43.
2. Gakidou E, King G. Death by survey: estimating adult mortality without selection bias from sibling survival data. Demography. 2006; 43(3):569-85.
3. Lu C, Michaud C, Gakidou E, Khan K, Murray CJL. Independent evaluation of the impact of GAVI Alliance on DTP3 coverage. The Lancet. 2006; 368(9541):1088-95.
4. Lozano R, Soliz P, Gakidou E, Abbott-Klafter J, Feehan D, Vidal C, Ortiz JP, Murray CJL. Benchmarking of performance of Mexican states with effective coverage. The Lancet. 2006; 368(9548):1729-41.
5. Gakidou E, Lozano R, González-Pier E, Abbott-Klafter J, Barofsky JT, Bryson-Cahn C, Feehan DM, Lee DK, Hernández-Llamas H, Murray CJ. Assessing the effect of the 2001-06 Mexican health reform: an interim report card. The Lancet. 2006 Nov 25; 368(9550):1920-35.
6. King G, Gakidou E, Ravishankar N, Moore RT, Lakin J, Vargas M, Tellez-Rojo MM, Hernandez-Avila JE, Hernandez-Avila M, Hernandez-Llamas H. A ‘politically robust’ experimental design for public policy evaluation, with application to the Mexican universal health insurance program. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 2007; 26(3):479-506.
7. Gakidou E, Oza S, Vidal Fuertes C, Li AY, Lee DK, Sousa A, Hogan MC, Vander Hoorn S, Ezzati M. Improving child survival through environmental and nutritional interventions: the importance of targeting interventions toward the poor. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2007; 98(16):1876-87.
8. Obermeyer Z, Murray CJL, Gakidou E. A half-century of war mortality from Vietnam to Bosnia: New estimates from the World Health Survey Program. British Medical Journal. 2008 Jun 28; 336(7659):1482-6.
9. Gakidou E, Nordhagen S, Obermeyer Z. Coverage of cervical cancer screening in 57 countries: low average levels and large inequalities. PLoS Medicine. 2008 Jun 17; 5(6):e132.
10. Liu Y, Rao K, Wu J, Gakidou E. China's health system performance. The Lancet. 2008; 372(9653):1914-23.
11. King G, Gakidou E, Imai K, Lakin J, Moore RT, Nall C, Ravishankar N, Vargas M Tellez-Rojo MM, Hernandez-Avila JE, Hernandez-Avila M, Hernandez-Llamas H. Public policy for the poor? A randomized ten-month evaluation of the Mexican universal health insurance program. The Lancet. [in press]

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