Research

My research investigates the international and domestic politics of global health policy reform. A political scientist by training, my work illustrates the utility of institutional, civil societal, and international relations theory in explaining government responses to a variety of public health threats. More recently, my work has expanded to combine interest group and institutional theory to account for variation in government policy response to the rise and influence of soda and ultra-processed food industries in several emerging economies.

Below, please find a listing of my current research projects and collaborators.

General Interests

  • Political Institutions, Interest Groups, and NCD Policy
  • Global Health Governance, Diplomacy, and Health Systems Reform
  • International Health Organizations

Research Projects

  • Junk Food Politics

    Junk Food Politics

    In this new book project, I compare several emerging economies in Latin America and Asia, such as Mexico, Brazil, India, and China, on the politics of private sector sugar industry interference in public health research and prevention programs, with a focus on obesity and type-2 diabetes. This work combines comparative historical institutional analysis with political science frameworks emphasising the politics of corporate interest group strategies in manipulating government research and policy design. Preliminary findings will be presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.

  • Institutions and Type-2 Diabetes Policy in Brazil and Mexico

    Institutions and Type-2 Diabetes Policy in Brazil and Mexico

    With collaborators Emanuel Orozco Nunez and Armando Arredondo Lopez at the National Public Health Institute in Mexico and Flavia Mori and Marislei Nishijma at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, this project compares the politics of institutional inequalities in the provision type-2 diabetes treatment and self-care management services in several cities in both countries. To our knowledge, this is the first effort to conduct a political science perspective on the politics of public versus private health insurer policies and inequality in type-2 diabetes self-care management services.

  • International Health Organisations and Civil Society

    International Health Organisations and Civil Society

    Another area of research focuses on the application of institutional theory to the reform and adaptation of international health organisations, such as the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. More specifically, this work seeks to explain how insights from institutional change theory, network and power theory can advance our understandings of how these organisations differentiate in their response to country healthcare needs, while providing insights into greater organizational efficiency and policy effectiveness.

    Other current work explores the role of civil societal actors, such as activists, celebrities, and NGOs, in influencing policymaking processes within international health organisations.