Cristian Herrera

Cristian Herrera's principal interests include health policy and systems research (HPSR) and knowledge translation, specifically, the links with the top political levels of decision making and the politics of the healthcare systems. His other areas of interest are methodological issues in HPSR as well as research and policy related to primary health care, poverty, human resources for health, health financing systems and medical education. He has served as a teacher assistant for Dr. Jorge Jimenez, a former Minister of Health of Chile, in the course Poverty and Health and as a research assistant for Dr. Tomás Pantoja on several projects at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). He is also member of the Primary Health Care Unit of the College of Physicians of Chile where he is collaborating in the generation of proposals for reforms to the health system of his country.

He holds a 'Licenciate in Medicine', and is scheduled to receive his MD in December 2009. During his stay at the Forum, Cristian worked with John Lavis and others in the evaluation of the knowledge-translation platforms in the Americas (EVIPNet Americas). Moreover, in addition to being exposed to different Forum programs, he worked with John Lavis to shape a proposal being developed through a partnership between the PUC, McMaster University and the Harvard School of Public Health. This project aims to identify the barriers and facilitators encountered by high-level Latin American health policymakers in using HPSR in policymaking.