Dr Ruma Bhargava is a public health and social impact professional with over 14 years of experience working in policy, advocacy, research and implementation. A Chevening fellow from the University of Oxford, she currently leads the Health Care Vertical of the India Centre of the World Economic Forum.
She has worked with the International Red Cross defining policies for COVID relief across the Asia Pacific and earlier with the Govt of India to conceptualize strategies for India’s Universal Immunization Programme reaching 26 million children and 30 million pregnant women annually. Dr Rum also heads Samarpann, an NGO working in 70 schools with 13,500 children in rural and tribal India ensuring their health, education and livelihood. She regularly consults with multiple stakeholders – UN, Govt and Civil Society in domains of Health Systems Strengthening, Maternal and Child Health, Communicable and Non-Communicable diseases and digital health
She holds an MBA from NTU Singapore, and Masters in Public Health and Bachelors in Dental Surgery from Manipal University.
While the COVID-19 crisis has largely spared children from its devastating health effects, its impact on their education has been profound. The effects of school closures have been far-re...
In 2019, there were approximately 23.6 million new cancer cases and 10 million cancer deaths globally, which represents a 26.3% increase in new cases and a 20.9% increase in fatalities co...
The gender gap in India has always been skewed, with most health indicators, literacy levels and employment statistics favoring men. As India embarks on its largest immunization drive aga...
Cancer is the leading cause of death around the world and a key barrier in increasing life expectancy in almost every country. The World Health Organization estimates, between 2000-2019, ...
COVID-19 has proven to be not only a health crisis, but also a livelihood crisis – quickly turning into a hunger and malnutrition catastrophe.
It’s a common misconception that cardiovascular diseases only affect men or women in high-income countries, or that they result from poor lifestyle choices.
Immunization is one the most cost-effective public health interventions, preventing 2 to 3 million lives from being lost annually from life-threatening diseases.
COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerabilities in our social, political and economic systems and amplified pre-existing gender inequalities in these spheres. We have witnessed the public health...
This article first appeared in theprint.in.
Cancer—or the ‘Big C’, as we call it—is chronic yet curable, provided that it is diagnosed early and healthcare costs are affordable. According to the WHO’s GLOBOCAN report, 19.3 million ...
