Laureate Professor Alan Lopez is an international authority on the global burden of disease and the use of health data for the development of health systems and policy.

He has been awarded several major research grants in epidemiology, health services research and population health, including funding from the NHMRC, Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and AusAID.

He currently leads the Data for Health Initiative funded by a philanthropic grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies in association with the Australian Government’s Innovation Xchange program. This initiative aims to improve health data in developing countries by using new innovative research and communications technologies to help countries improve basic birth and death data and to monitor major risk factors.