Editor Profiles

Maria is an Editor for the BMC Series, and has been the Editor of BMC Health Services Research since October 2017.

As an undergraduate student, Maria studied Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. She moved on to completed an MSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of East Anglia, UK, where she stayed to obtain a PhD in Biomolecular Science. During her PhD studies, Maria investigated the structural and biochemical properties of periplasmic chaperones in Salmonella in response to envelope stress. It was then that Maria learned she had a greater interest in scientific writing and science communication than in the laboratory practises, and so following the completion of her PhD she joined the Editorial team of the BMC Series in October 2017.  

Health systems and services in low and middle income settings

Dina Balabanova, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Health Systems and Policy in the Department of Global Health and Development at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her expertise is in health systems and policy research - governance, institution building and effective delivery - in the transition countries of the European region, and currently in low and middle income countries. She leads work on effective and equitable primary care delivery for underserved populations involving community volunteers (Ethiopia), and integrating vertical and system-wide approaches in managing neglected tropical diseases (Kenya). Dina is currently exploring barriers to continuous hypertension control among rural and underserved populations in Malaysia and the Philippines using surveys and digital diary technologies, with previous work on diabetes. She is also a board member of Health Systems Global since 2012. Dina has served as a Section Editor at BMC Health Services Research since 2011, and is involved in capacity building for research and publishing.

Health systems and services in low and middle income settings

David Hotchkiss is Vice Chair and Professor in the Department of Global Community Health & Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.  Trained as a health economist, his current research focuses on the evaluation of health financing and information system interventions in low- and middle-income countries; socio-economic inequities in health and health care utilization; and the evaluation of maternal and child health programs. David has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, USAID, UNICEF, and UNFPA. He teaches two graduate-level classes: International Health Policy and Health Economics for Developing Countries. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.A. in Demography from Georgetown University. David joined the Editorial Board in 2011.

Utilization, expenditure, economics and financing systems

Milena Pavlova is Associate Professor of Health Economics at the Department of Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on the financing of the health care sector, including health insurance, formal and informal patient payments, as well as stated preference approaches, such as willingness-to-pay methods and discrete choice experiments. From 2008 to 2013, she coordinated the FP7 project “Assessment of patient payment policies and projection of their efficiency, equity and quality aspects: the case of Central and Eastern Europe”. At present she participates in new EU projects such as the ProHealth65+ project funded by CHAFEA and the ERASMUS+ project BIHSENA. In 2016, she received the AXA Award for successful mid-career researchers, and in 2017, she was awarded the title Honorary University Professor by the Corvinus University of Budapest. Milena Pavlova joined the Editorial Board of BMC Health Services Research in September 2013.

Health systems and services in low and middle income settings

Kaspar Wyss is a Public Health Specialist, Professor and Head of Department of the Swiss Centre for International Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH). Kaspar Wyss has strong management and leadership experience and is in charge of a team of over 50 staff in Basel focusing on health systems development in low- and middle-income countries as well as Switzerland.
His activities relate to both research and health system monitoring and performance assessment, with a specific interest in the role and importance of human resources for health. He directs a number of research and implementation projects in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa and has extensive consultancy experiences for a broad range of clients such as the World Bank, UNICEF, the Swiss Agency for Development or the German GiZ and KfW. He teaches health systems for the University of Basel and other universities.
Research activities focus on practices and challenges in the preparation, enhancement and management of the health workforce in low- and middle-income countries as well as household expenditures on health in the context of progressing towards universal health coverage
Kaspar has been acting as editor for BMC Health Services Research since 2015 and as Section Editor since 2016.