Unni Gopinathan
Senior scientist
Responsibilities
I am Senior Scientist in NIPH's Centre for Epidemic Interventions Research. My research focus mainly on two areas. First, effect evaluation of public health and social measures for infection prevention, including designing and conducting randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations. I also work on developing new research networks and partnerships for this purpose, including through CEIR’s work as a WHO Collaborating Centre and the NordPrep project, funded by the Nordic Council, which aims to strengthen the Nordic public health institutes’ capacity to lead effect evaluations of public health and social measures during pandemics. Second, the use of evidence in health policymaking, including how scientific evidence and other sources of knowledge can be combined to achieve evidence-informed health systems. I work on the latter primarily in collaboration with academic and professional communities in low- and middle-income countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and India. In these areas, I have been the principal investigator for two research projects financed by the Norwegian Research Council. I also led the work on the World Bank report "Open and Inclusive: Fair Processes for Financing Universal Health Coverage" financed by Norad and was co-editor of the corresponding article series in Health Policy and Planning (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/issue/38/Supplement_1). I also spend 20% of my time with the Cluster for Global Health, where I contribute in particular to the cluster’s work on global health security.