Prabhat Jha (epidemiologist)

Prabhat Jha, MD OC, (born February 12, 1965) is an Indian-Canadian epidemiologist and health economist working in the field of global health and founding director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada[UofT]. His research focuses primarily on premature mortality resulting from HIV/AIDS, tobacco, alcohol, malaria, maternal and child health, infectious and non-communicable diseases.

Jha was born in Ranchi, India in Jharkhand state. When he was six years old his family moved to Winnipeg Canada where his father worked as a civil engineer and went on to become an NDP member of Manitoba’s legislative assembly. Together with his older brother and younger sister, he was raised by his mother.

Jha studied medicine at the University of Manitoba. After earning his MD he attended the University of Oxford in England as a Rhodes Scholar where he was mentored by statistician and epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto. He successfully defended his PhD in epidemiology and public health in 1992.

After graduation Jha worked as a team leader at the World Bank, contributing to the development of the Second National HIV/AIDS Control Program in India. He later worked as a senior scientist in health and poverty for the World Health Organization’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health.

In 2002 he founded the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, where he has directed a variety of large scale public health studies, most notably the Indian Million Death Study on premature mortality. Jha’s research focuses on the causes of premature death in developing countries worldwide, and he has been recognized internationally for his work on smoking and tobacco related mortality. He is also a member of the Disease Control Priorities Project.

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