Professor Jeremy Lauer

Personal statement

Jeremy joined Strathclyde University in February 2020 as Professor of Management Science in Strathclyde Business School following a 25-year career (1995-2020) as an Economist with the World Health Organization (WHO). Jeremy has a bachelor’s degree (A.B., 1986) in Mathematics and Philosophy from St John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, master’s degrees (M.A., M.Sc., 1991) in Economics and in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a doctorate (Ph.D., 2009) in Health Policy and Management from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Jeremy's early research centred around the use and interpretation of mathematical models in economic evaluation in global health, and he has contributed to an influential body of work on the cost effectiveness of interventions against cardiovascular risk factors and disease, respiratory conditions, cancers, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and interventions for chronic disease prevention, as well as on health systems research and diverse topics in epidemiology, modelling and statistics.

Jeremy has led inter-disciplinary teams in a range of countries in Latin America and Africa on adapting the results of economic evaluation to national settings, and has significant experience in best practices for policy implementation in real-world settings.

With former WHO colleagues, in 2020 Jeremy published a series of papers introducing a major update on the cost effectiveness of nearly 500 interventions covering 20 distinct areas of disease and risk-factor programmes for the WHO-CHOICE programme. Also while at Strathclyde, Jeremy finalized and published as Lead Editor a book on the use of fiscal policy to achieve health objectives, involving collaboration with over two dozen global experts. This flagship publication of the World Health Organization represents the first book-length treatment of the innovative new public policy agenda popularly dubbed "health taxes". It was also the first book on a health topic to be endorsed by a global financial institution (The World Bank).

In 2014-2015, Jeremy was deployed to Guinea for the Ebola Response, where he performed rapid evaluations of response coordination and operational risk for the WHO in the préfectures of Coyah, Forécariah, and Kindia. Jeremy has served under six Directors-General of the WHO and, from 2006 to 2015, Jeremy served as a senior elected Staff Representative at the WHO. In 2013 Jeremy was appointed to the Secretariat of Committee A, the main technical and programme committee of the World Health Assembly, where he served until 2019.

Jeremy was asked to support critical governance functions of the WHO during the recent election of the Director-General (2016-2017), during which he served as the official WHO Liaison Officer to the successful campaign of the current Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Dr Tedros continues to serve as Director-General after his successful re-election in 2022.

Jeremy has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on a number of large research projects in breast-cancer and chronic-disease control while at the WHO and has been a member of Steering Committees and Technical Advisory Groups at the University of Stellenbosch (SACEMA), the University of Basel (Swiss TPH) and the University of Bergen (CIH). In 2016, Jeremy analysed the economics of fiscal space for health workforce expansion in lower- and lower-middle income countries, as well as the interactions between the health system and the economy, for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. In 2017 Jeremy made two plenary addresses to the World Hepatitis Summit in São Paulo. In 2018 Jeremy was invited to advise the G20 health ministers' working group in Geneva, and he also addressed the plenary session of the 8th biennial Global Forum for Government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officers in Geneva that year. In 2019 Jeremy delivered a plenary address to the Congress of the International Council of Nurses in Singapore on the economic impact of the nursing workforce. Jeremy continues to accept high-level engagements at the United Nations General Assembly, appearing as a key-note speaker at high-profile side events in both 2022 and 2023.

Jeremy's expertise includes economic evaluation, fiscal policies for health, ethics in global health, the macroeconomics of health and the health system, the health workforce, health systems strengthening, health system reform and health services research. Jeremy is willing to supervise suitably qualified PhD students in his fields of interest.