Finding Ways to Live Relevantly Yasmin Rafiei (Prairies & Pembroke 2017) in conversation with Dr Devi Sridhar (Florida & Wolfson 2003), Founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme at the University of Edinburgh and former board member for the World Economic Forum.
‘Without health, you have nothing – you have no chance at work or enjoyment’
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r Devi Sridhar is a paragon of aligned, impactful activity. A global health triple threat, she consolidates her energy into research, health advocacy, and writing. As Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Devi’s research interests coalesce around governance and financing in global health. She completed an MPhil-turned-DPhil in Global Health as a Rhodes Scholar, which she followed with a postdoctoral research fellowship at All Souls College. At the University of Edinburgh, she is the Founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme and has served on boards for the World Economic Forum, Save the Children, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Her recent tour de force is Governing Global Health, a book co-written with Chelsea Clinton, which empirically analyses global health organisations and the public-private partnerships
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that aim to reduce health inequities. When I ask her how she does it, she waves off these accomplishments as exclamatory punctuations along what she stresses is a ‘journey in finding ways to live each day in a way that’s relevant’. For Devi, working on global health challenges is a means of providing individuals with a baseline for fulfillment: ‘Without health, you have nothing – you have no chance at work or enjoyment’. Devi speaks from personal experience. Her father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away when she was young. This memory, alongside her work in global health, constantly reminds Devi of our own mortality. Rather than shy away from an impending terminus, she says the limits to human life help render manageable the staccato of her everyday stressors. Devi rationalises problems by questioning whether they will matter in a few days, weeks, or years. If they won’t, Devi concentrates her