Email hipgrave@nus.edu.sg

David is an Australian paediatrician and global child health specialist with extensive experience in Africa and south and east Asia. David commenced his career in international health as a District Health Officer in Malawi before completing formal speciality training in Paediatrics in Melbourne. He worked extensively on immunization in the Mekong Region and managed child health and nutrition programs and emergency responses for UNICEF in Indonesia, China, Myanmar, India and Afghanistan. At UNICEF’s New York Headquarters, David was team lead for health systems strengthening and primary health care. Most recently he led UNICEF’s Health and Nutrition program in Iraq, based in Baghdad, leading the response to COVID-19 and its impact on health services. For over ten years David was an Associate in the University of Melbourne’s School of Population Health, where he completed his PhD based on work undertaken in Vietnam. Twice a Lancet Commissioner, he has published over 65 peer-reviewed papers on a wide variety of child health, nutrition and health systems issues.

David holds a joint appointment between the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute. His objectives in this joint role are to use the two agencies’ respective capacities to demonstrate Singapore’s qualities and potential as a regional leader in global health, strengthening health systems and reducing inequities in health care access and outcomes.

• NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
• SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute

• Early life prevention of the risk of NCD in later life
• Digital transformation of health management information systems and health governance
• Public financial management to better enable healthcare and health systems financing
• Building health systems knowledge and capacity in sub-national health leaders in the region

• Global child health
• Health systems

• B.Sc. University of Melbourne (1983)
• MB.BS. University of Melbourne (1986)
• Ph.D. University of Melbourne (2004)
• FRACP. Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (Paediatrics) (1997)

• First class honours in 7 of 9 subjects in B.Sc; honours in Medicine, Surgery and Psychiatry in MB.BS.
• Australian Society for Infectious Diseases Annual Scientific meeting, Barossa Valley, 2002. Roche award for best poster presentation, on: Protective efficacy of hepatitis B vaccine stored outside the cold chain in rural Vietnam

• Hospital Medical Officer and District Health Officer, Malawi, Africa. 1990-91: (funded by AusAID)
• Project Manager and Team Leader. August 1997 – July 2001: The Burnet Institute International Health Unit Hanoi, Vietnam
• Consultant Paediatrician, 1998 – Oct 2004: International SOS Clinic, Hanoi, Vietnam (part-time)
• Senior Program Officer, July 2001 – Oct 2004: Australian International Health Institute (University of Melbourne), with the Children’s Vaccine Program (CVP) at PATH, Hanoi, Vietnam
• Chief, Health and Nutrition Unit, October 2004 – February 2007: UNICEF Country Office, Jakarta, Indonesia
• Chief, Health, Nutrition and Water and Environmental Sanitation Section, February 2007 – September 2011: UNICEF China
• Associate, September 2011 – June 2023: Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
• Senior Health Specialist, May 2013 – January 2016: UNICEF New York, USA
• Senior Health Advisor (Unit Chief, Health Systems Strengthening – HSS): January 2016 – June 2020: UNICEF New York
• Chief of Health and Nutrition, July 2020 – April 2023: UNICEF Iraq

• Acting Representative, PATH, Vietnam 1997-2001
• Section Chief, UNICEF Programs at country level, 2004-11 and 2020-23
• Unit Chief, Health Systems Strengthening, UNICEF New York, 2016-20
• Acting Deputy Representative and Representative, UNICEF China and Iraq Country Offices 2007-11; 2020-23

• PLAN International, Malaria curtains project, Lilongwe, Malawi, 1997
• PATH, NGO Networks for Health, Hanoi, Vietnam, 1999 (Secretariat)
• PATH, New Project Development coordinator and NGO Networks for Health representative, 1997 – 2000
• University of Melbourne, funded by CVP at PATH: Introduction of hepatitis B vaccine in Cambodia, 2000/2001 and provision of technical support for CVP activities in Cambodia, 2000 – 2002
• University of Melbourne, funded by CVP at PATH: Introduction of hepatitis B vaccine in Myanmar, 2001
• World Health Organisation. Progress report on Introduction of Hepatitis B vaccine in Vietnam, December 2002
• UNICEF. Evaluation of AusAID-funded maternal and child health programs in Indonesia, September 2004
• Nossal Institute, University of Melbourne: Priority-setting in MNCH, for the Partnership for MNCH, with University of Queensland (2012)
• China-Australia HIV/AIDS and Health Facility project on health financing in China for the China National Health Development Research Centre (2012)
• Dual practice in South and East Asia. Policy Brief for the WHO Asia Pacific Observatory (2012)
• Marie Stopes international (Cambodia): Evaluation of the “Reducing Maternal Mortality Project 2” (2013)

• Xing Lin Feng, Sufang Guo, David Hipgrave, Jun Zhu, Lingli Zhang, Li Song, Qing Yang, Yan Guo, Carine Ronsmans. China’s facility-based birth strategy and neonatal mortality. Lancet, 2011, 378 (9801), 1493-1500
• David Hipgrave. Communicable Disease Control in China: from Mao to Now. Journal of Global Health, 2011, 1 (2), 224-238
• David B. Hipgrave and Krishna Hort. Dual practice by doctors working in South and East Asia: A review of its origins, scope and impact and the options for regulation. Health Policy and Planning, 29, 703-716. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czt053
• Yi Ma, Sufang Guo, Huishan Wang, Tao Xu, Xiaona Huang, Chenyue Zhao, Yan Wang, Robert W. Scherpbier, David B. Hipgrave. Cause of death among infants in rural western China: a community-based study using standardized verbal autopsy. J Pediatr. 2014 Sep;165(3):577-84. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2014.04.047.
• David Hipgrave, Suying Chang, Xiaowei Li, Yongning Wu. Excessive salt consumption in China (Research letter). JAMA 2016, 315 (7); 703-705.
• John Grundy, Beverley-Ann Biggs, David B. Hipgrave. Public Health Interventions and International Health Partnerships – the Case of Immunization in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 2015 PLoS Med, 12(12): e1001929 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001929
• Luisa Brumana, Nina R. Schwalbe, Alvaro Arroyo, Susanna Lehtimaki, David B. Hipgrave. Maternal and Child Health Services and an Integrated, Life-Cycle Approach to the Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases. BMJ Global Health, http://gh.bmj.com/content/2/3/e000295 doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000295
• Malalai Naziri, Ariel Higgins-Steele … David B. Hipgrave, Sherin Varkey. Scaling up newborn care in Afghanistan: Opportunities and challenges for the health sector. Health Policy and Planning. 33(2), 2017: http://org/10.1093/heapol/czx136
• David Barry Hipgrave … Deswanto Marbun. District team problem solving as an approach to district health program planning: A review, and survey of its status in selected districts in Indonesia. Health Policy and Planning, 2018. 33(4), 555–563. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czy007
• Helen Clark, Awa Coll-Seck…, David B Hipgrave…, Anthony Costello. A future for the world’s children? A WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission. Lancet (2020); 395: 605–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(19)32540-1
• Kara Hanson, Nouria Brikci…, David Hipgrave…. (2022). The Lancet Global Health Commission on financing for primary health care: putting people at the centre. Lancet Global Health (2022); 10: e715-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00005-5
• Jane Fisher, Thach Tran…, David B Hipgrave…. (2023). Structured multicomponent community-based program for women’s health and infant’s health and development in rural Vietnam: a parallel group cluster randomised controlled trial. Lancet Child and Adolescent Health (2023); 7(5); 311-325. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(23)00032-9/fulltext
• David Hipgrave, Yan Mu. (2017) Modernisation, prioritisation and reorganisation of China’s health system. Country case studies: Springer Handbook on Health Systems, for WHO European Regional Office. Geneva. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6419-8_6-1