Ritu Sadana holds a MSc focusing on health systems and policies research methods, from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and a doctorate (ScD) focusing on health policy, epidemiology, and economics from Harvard University. She joined the World Health Organization in 1988 and worked in the Regional Office for Europe for five years before moving to Headquarters in 1998. In between, she set up and managed a multi-disciplinary research capacity strengthening project in Cambodia (1993-1998).

At WHO Headquarters she led teams on Health Status Measurement (1999-2002) where she contributed to the development and testing of the WHO World Health Survey in 70 countries; and on the Health Research Systems Analysis Initiative (2002-2004). Between 2005 and 2006 she was the Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst, within the Office of the Assistant Director-General, Information, Evidence and Research Cluster. Ritu was the Coordinator of the Equity Analysis and Evidence Unit (2006-2011) where she managed WHO’s analytical and evidence synthesis contributions involving 150 institutions, to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health.