Christopher J.L. Murray

Christopher J.L. MurrayChristopher J.L. Murray is the Institute Director of the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation at the University of Washington and Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington School of Medicine.  

A physician and health economist, his early work focused on tuberculosis control and the development with Dr Alan Lopez of the Global Burden of Disease methods and applications.  In this work, they developed a new metric to compare death and disability from various diseases and the contribution of risk factors to the overall burden of disease in developing and developed countries.  This pioneering effort has been hailed as a major landmark in public health and an important foundation for policy formulation and priority setting.  He has also contributed to the development of a range of new methods and empirical studies to strengthen the basis for population health measurement and cost-effectiveness analysis.  He worked at the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003 where he served as the Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster while Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland was Director-General.  Since 1998, a main thrust of his work has been on the conceptualization, measurement and application of approaches to understand the inputs, organization, outputs and outcomes of health systems.  From 2003 until 2007, Dr Murray was the Director of the Harvard University Initiative for Global Health and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, as well as the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health.  

Dr Murray has authored or edited fourteen books, many book chapters and more than 120 journal articles in internationally peer-reviewed publications.  He holds a BA from Harvard College, a DPhil from Oxford University and an MD from Harvard Medical School.  

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