Dr. Ritu Sadana
Senior Health Advisor within the Department of Ageing and Life Course, World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr Ritu Sadana is Senior Health Advisor within the Department of Ageing and Life Course with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. Dr Sadana coordinated the development and consultation process leading to the first Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health, endorsed by the World Health Assembly (2016). She was a core writer for the World Report on Ageing and Health (2015), including lead author of an associated paper on healthy ageing and health equity. She currently coordinates WHO’s work on metrics, monitoring and research on Healthy Ageing, including a new International Consortium on Healthy Ageing Metrics and Evidence, and revitalizing a network of WHO Collaborating Centers on Ageing and Health.

Previously at WHO, Dr Sadana was Editor-in-Chief of The European Health Report 2012, co-editor of the WHO African Region Report on Health Inequities (2010), and contributed to several other WHO landmark reports, on health systems performance (2000), knowledge for better health (2004), human resources for health (2006), and health systems financing (2010). Dr Sadana also played a key role in the development and testing of the WHO World Health Survey in some 70 countries, contributed to the Global Burden of Disease methods and estimates, and coordinated WHO’s analytical and evidence synthesis contributions to the Commission on Social Determinants of Health involving 150 institutions. She also set up and managed WHO’s Health Systems Research Initiative, a WHO Task Force on Global Research Priorities on Health Equity, and a WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage.

Dr Sadana previously worked in WHO’s Regional Office for Europe in Copenhagen, Denmark; with UNFPA implementing research capacity development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and in the private sector in USA, including with managed health and social care settings engaging older adults. She holds a MSc focusing on health systems and policies research methods, from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and earned a doctorate (ScD) from Harvard University focusing on epidemiology and economics. She currently serves as an editorial advisor for The Bulletin of the World Health Organization and has over 100 peer reviewed publications.