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Laurel Hatt

Practice Lead, Sustainable and Equitable Health Financing

Dr. Laurel Hatt is a senior program director for Results for Development. She brings over 15 years of professional experience in health economics and finance, health systems strengthening, and evaluation research. Before joining R4D, she was health finance lead for the $200 million USAID-funded Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project at Abt Associates, overseeing a program of technical assistance in over 25 countries that includes strengthening financial protection systems, increasing domestic resource mobilization for health, strategic purchasing reforms, and economic analyses.

At R4D, Dr. Hatt is senior program director for the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI), a partnership that brings country policymakers, health system managers, practitioners, advocates, development partners, and communities together to catalyze and accelerate primary health care (PHC) improvements through better measurement, knowledge-sharing, and advocacy. She also contributes to R4D’s strategic purchasing portfolio in Indonesia through the USAID-funded Health Finance and Governance project.

Dr. Hatt authored the 2015 seminal review of the Impact of Health Systems Strengthening on Health and convened an expert review process to estimate the effects of health systems strategies where evidence is still minimal. Previously, Dr. Hatt evaluated health finance programs in Nigeria, Ghana, Nicaragua, Bangladesh and Mali using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Her doctoral dissertation research analyzed risk factors for catastrophic health expenditures in Peru and measured their long-term effects on families.

Dr. Hatt has a PhD in international health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and a BA in politics from Oberlin College.

Global & Regional Initiatives

R4D is a globally recognized leader for designing initiatives that connect implementers, experts and funders across countries to build knowledge and get that knowledge into practice.