Meet Eliana Chavarria Pino and Lorenza Nachira, two visiting PhD students working on Global Health and Planetary Health. In a peer-to-peer interview, these two students share their motivation and future aspirations.
What brings you to ESHPM?
Eliana: I am a visiting PhD student researching the effect of health financing in low-income settings at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Dr. Laura Anselmi and Prof. Matt Sutton. ESHPM has a strong reputation and track record in Global Health Economics research, and my goal is to meet other researchers working on similar topics, using similar datasets and applying similar methods.
My visit is hosted by RGHI and Dr. Igna Bonfrer, who has extensive research experience in the causal evaluation of health financing reforms in low and middle-income countries. During the visit, I will be developing one of the empirical chapters of my PhD focused on assessing disease-specific health expenditure and better understanding the pathways for effective health investment. This is a unique opportunity to gain feedback and new perspectives that will certainly enhance the quality of my research.
What drew you to Global Health?
Eliana: My journey has been influenced by my upbringing in Colombia, a country marked by significant inequality. Growing up in Columbia made me aware of how drastically people's life trajectories can vary depending on their birthplace, whether that's within a specific region in a country, or globally.
My academic and professional career began more generally in development economics but later, during my master's studies, I shifted towards Global Health. Without good health, people cannot fully participate in or contribute to their communities and economies, nor can they achieve their full potential. Specializing in Global Health has allowed me to focus on what I consider the bare minimum for development: ensuring that people can live healthy long lives. Health is not just an outcome of development but also an enabler of it. This realization motivated me to pursue a PhD in Health Economics and has guided my research efforts, aiming to evaluate health policies to inform public policy that can make a tangible difference in low and middle-income countries.
Lorenza: This reminds me of the rampant inequalities that also exist in Italy. Rome is a great example of this, and it's explained very clearly by a groundbreaking project led by three Italian scientists called "mapparoma", where they plot the distribution of different parameters, such as health outcomes, socioeconomic determinants, demographic and urban characteristics, each on a map of the city. And if you look at all these maps, you can see that there are patterns of unequal distribution of these parameters, it's like there are different cities within a city defined by inequalities. I find their work very inspiring, both for the reality they describe, which reminds me of the importance of fighting urban inequalities, and for its communicative power.
What plans do you have for your future?
Eliana: I want to continue developing as an independent researcher in Global Health Economics. In the coming years, I plan to further refine my technical skills and specialize my research in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Colombia, and the Caribbean. There is a small but growing community of researchers in the region dedicated to Global Health Economics, and I am eager to contribute to and be part of this development. I want to make significant contributions from within academia while also engaging closely with the public policy sphere.
One of my primary ambitions is to help elevate Colombia’s academic profile in the field of Global Health Economics. I aim to foster academic exchange between Colombian institutions and those in the Global North, and to create more opportunities for international collaboration.
What read, watch or listening tips do you have for RGHI readers?
Eliana: I enjoy watching the YouTube channel CrashCourse. It contains educational videos on a variety of topics and short engaging videos with amazing illustrations.
What brings you to ESHPM?
Lorenza: I'm usually based in Rome. After becoming a licensed medical doctor, I started a 4-year specialization programme in Public Health, Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, which I will finish in January 2025. I chose to visit ESHPM because it is one of the few places in Europe that I know of, which is focusing on Planetary Health.
In the first years of my specialization, Planetary Health really grew on me, thanks to my collaboration with Dr. Chiara Cadeddu, who was previously a researcher at my home university. That’s why I saw this as a perfect opportunity to continue working with her and learn more about this field, as well as to experience an international working environment in one of the most prestigious universities in Europe.
What are you working on?
Lorenza: I am collaborating on research with Chiara and Igna. With their guidance, I am scoping a review on climate resilience of health systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and this is a project that is really making me grow from a scientific point of view.
Working at the intersection of Planetary and Global Health is broadening my horizons, and I am grateful for the chance to work with such dedicated scientists.
Eliana: I see a clear connection with my interests, because I know that there are also deep inequalities in the impacts of the climate crisis and other environmental disruptions, with some countries being more affected than others: such as those with predominantly agricultural economies, or with developing economies, or with a particular geographical vulnerability, like the Small Island Developing States which you are scoping.
What is your connection with the topic Planetary Health?
Lorenza: I have always loved nature. I grew up in the countryside and I still have a very close relationship with nature. Knowing that we humans are destroying the environment has always bothered me, but it was only during my specialization that I realized I could do something about it. In my first year, I was drawn to Chiara Cadeddu's work, especially her educational projects on Planetary Health in high schools. I became more and more interested and began to read from a variety of sources, while also learning about Global Health issues, which are very closely related to Planetary Health. I also became more aware of the good fortune of my birth conditions, which allowed me to be mostly healthy and to do something for those who share the human condition with me but were less fortunate in their birth conditions.
All these influences have shaped my passion so that I am no longer working to save nature for itself. I still love our planet and want it to remain as beautiful as I know it, but it's my love for people that drives my work. The human mind has evolved in so many beautiful ways since we stopped being hunter-gatherers, and of course this has come with many serious downsides that put our own home world and existence at risk. But I think it's only natural that it happened that way.
More and more people are waking up to the impact that humans have on the planet and understanding that if we don't change our societies and economic systems, the health of our species will only get worse. Maybe we won't be able to fully restore the perfect planetary conditions that allow us to thrive and be healthy, but that does not mean that anything we do to control the damage is useless. It's the moment to persist and guide the change, and my involvement in Planetary Health is just persisting.
What plans do you have for your future?
Lorenza: I would like to continue to grow and learn in the field of Planetary Health, and I also want to be part of concrete action. My main goal in this regard is to engage communities in the planetary movement. I'm very interested in how all the things we study and do in academia can be communicated to people in a way that makes them want to contribute and use their power. Sometimes even making them aware of their power and how to use it.
What communities are you referring to?
Lorenza: I am referring mainly to the general public, which I realize is a shallow term, because it encompasses heterogeneous groups of people with many different interests and concerns.
But for change to happen, the "general public" should be connected to other parts of society, such as policymakers and academics.