Roopa Dhatt

Dr. Roopa Dhatt
Born	India
Nationality	USA
Citizenship	USA
Education	University of California Paris Institute of Political Studies Temple University School of Medicine
Known for	President International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (2012-2013) Co-founder Women in Global Health (2015) Women Leaders in Global Health Conference
Medical career
Profession	Physician
Institutions	Georgetown University
Sub-specialties	Internal medicine
Research	Gender;Global Health; Health Policy ; Social Movements; Global Governance

Dr. Roopa Dhatt is a gender advocate, a global health diplomat, an Internal Medicine physician at a teaching hospital , Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. She is a leading voice in the movement to correct the gender imbalance in global health leadership. Determined to build a movement to transform women’s leadership opportunities in health, Dr. Dhatt co-founded Women in Global Health (WGH)) in 2015, and subsequently became the organisation's Executive Director.

Dr. Dhatt was recognized in the Gender Equality Top 100, the most influential people in global policy 2019. Dr Dhatt has worked in global health for nearly 15 years, collaborating with 120+ countries. She holds numerous advisory and board roles. She advises the World Health Organization (WHO) on matters of health workforce, gender equity, and universal health coverage. She has published in the Lancet, BMJ, Devex, Forbes and been interviewed in National Geographic, Nature, NPR, EuroNews and numerous other channels.

Women in Global Health is an organization built on a global movement with the largest network of women and allies working to challenge power and privilege for gender equity in health. It is a US 501(c)(3) started in 2015, which has grown to include over 50,000 supporters in 90 countries and has 25 official chapters, with a strong presence in low-and middle-income countries. The global team and its network of chapters drive change by mobilizing a diverse group of emerging women health leaders, by advocating to existing global health leaders to commit to transform their own institutions, and by holding these leaders accountable.

Together with the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2017, WGH jointly co-chairs the Gender Equity Hub for the Global Health Workforce Network, working with partners to catalyze gender equity and gender transformative change in the health workforce. As Co-Chair of the Gender Equity Hub in the Global Health Workforce Network of the WHO, Women in Global Health published Delivered by Women, Led by Men which looking collectively for the first time at issues of leadership, decent work free from all forms of discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, the gender pay gap, and occupational segregation—across the entire health workforce.

WGH collaborated with the Global Health Council to create the Women Leaders in Global Health Initiative. Dr. Dhatt was in the inaugural steering committee of the Women Leaders at the Global Health Conferencesfirst hosted by Stanford University; Women in Global Health was a founding implementing partner. Dr. Dhatt provided the closing call to action for women leaders in global health at the inaugural conference.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she brought visibility to the gendered aspects of the pandemic, including calling for a gender responsive approach to health security and health emergencies. She moderated a high level session with the The Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) to share evidence and experiences on the gendered aspects of the pandemic. Women in Global Health highlighted that a disproportionate number of frontline workers are women, 70% of the health and care workforce, yet they are underrepresented in decision making. Women in Global Health research showed that majority of the COVID-19 pandemic task teams were men, 85% of the 115 task teams analyzed from 87 countries in October 2020. She was also part of a team that evaluated the language used by men and women leaders during the pandemic, demonstrating that men were more likely to use war analogies and women focus on social protections.

On International Women's Day 2021, along with the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom, she signed a memorandum of understanding on the position of women in global health and to collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO) to work on gender equality, gender and Universal Health Coverage, and gender transformative policy action for the health and care workforce.

She also joined as a public delegate the historical United States (US) Delegation to the 65th Session of the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women in March 2021 UN Women, which was led by US Vice President Kamala Harris and US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield. She is also a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Global Health Diplomacy and Cooperation Task Force. She also has appointments at Georgetown University and University of Miami .

Early life and education

Cleveland, home of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Roopa Dhatt was born in the 1980s in India, and emigrated to the United States at the age of five. She often about discusses the dualities of growing up as an Indian American in California. She later recalled her experience of being treated for appendicitis during a visit to India in the early 1990s when she was nine years old, leading her to pursue a career in medicine.

She earned a bachelor's degree in Cell Biology and African-American and African studies from the University of California, Davis, and a master's degree in public affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies Sciences Po Paris . She received her M.D. from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. In 2012, as a medical student, she became president of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations.

Career

Prior to becoming a physician in Internal Medicine at Georgetown University hospital, and at a community hospital in Washington, DC, Dhatt trained in Internal Medicine and International Health at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine University Hospitals in Cleveland.

Women in Global Health

In 2015, she co-founded an organisation which aims to reduce gender disparity among global health leaders, the Women in Global Health, of which she is Executive Director. She is one of the Women Leaders in the Global Health Conferences.

Universal Health Coverage

In April 2019, Dr. Dhatt with her colleagues launched the 7th ASK on Gender Equality and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) at the UHC Multi-Stakeholder Meeting, in response to the gender blind health discussions on the high level political declaration. Together with partners, Women in Global Health formed the Alliance for Gender Equality and Universal Health Coverage, which brings together 150 civil society organizations from 70 countries. The Alliance’s collective mobilization contributed to the creation of arguably the most gender mainstreamed global health political declaration, the Universal Health Coverage Political Declaration.

COVID-19 pandemic

In September 2020, at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly representing Women in Global Health at a Women in Global Health Security Summit, Dhatt highlighted that a disproportionate number of frontline workers are women, many providing informal unpaid care. This disparity she says, contributes "to international female healthcare workers' widespread underpayment, under-recognition, and unequal exposure to contagion." She then presented Women in Global Health's five requests COVID 50/50 pertaining to women:

• To be included in decision-making
• Safe and decent working conditions
• To be recognised for their work
• "Gender-sensitive" data analysis process and response
• Funds to be directed to important gender problems

In the same year, she was part of a team that evaluated the language used by men and women leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings were published in BMJ Global Health in a paper titled "Political and gender analysis of speeches made by heads of government during the COVID-19 pandemic."

On 8 March 2021, Dhatt signed a memorandum of understanding with WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom with the aim "to further the shared goals and objectives of women's economic empowerment, gender transformative change in Universal Health Coverage and the health workforce on a global level".

Selected publications

• Dhatt, Roopa; Keeling, Ann (2020). "Women expertise has been excluded from the COVID-19 response" (PDF). Essays on Equality. The Global Institute for Women's Leadership, King's College: 6–9.
• Bali, Sulzhan; Dhatt, Roopa; Lal, Arush; Jama, Amina; Daalen, Kim Van; Sridhar, Devi (1 May 2020). "Off the back burner: diverse and gender-inclusive decision-making for COVID-19 response and recovery". BMJ Global Health. 5 (5): e002595. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002595. ISSN 2059-7908. PMC 7228484. PMID 32385047.
• Dada, Sara; Ashworth, Henry Charles; Bewa, Marlene Joannie; Dhatt, Roopa (1 January 2021). "Words matter: political and gender analysis of speeches made by heads of government during the COVID-19 pandemic". BMJ Global Health. 6 (1): e003910. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003910. ISSN 2059-7908. PMC 7849321. PMID 33514593.

External links

• Women Leading Global Health: Roopa Dhatt (2018) on YouTube