Summary
Matthew Harris (DPhil MBBS MSc PGCE FFPH) is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Public Health, in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, and he is an Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine in the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. His research spans global health, innovation diffusion, and primary care and health services research with a particular focus on bidirectional learning between the NHS and low-income countries (Reverse Innovation). This has included measuring unconscious bias against low-income countries, evaluating International Health Partnerships and conducting qualitative research around Reverse Innovation. In 2014 he was awarded a Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellowship to research Reverse Innovation in the US as a Visiting Research Assistant Professor at New York University, under the mentorship of Prof James Macinko (UCLA) and Dr Don Goldmann (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Boston). In 2018 he was awarded an Imperial College London Presidents Excellence in Teaching and Learning grant to advance the Reverse Innovation agenda in higher education by 'decolonizing' the curriculum of the Masters in Public Health. In 2019 he was appointed co-Editor of the Reverse Innovation series in the BioMed Central journal Globalization and Health. In 2024 he was awarded a NHS National Clinical Impact Award for his work in translating low-cost solutions from low-income countries into the NHS.
Matthew was an Educational Supervisor for Public Health Specialist Registrars undertaking academic placements at Imperial College and the Co-Director of the Masters in Public Health at Imperial College London (2016-2022). He leads the Global Health Innovations module of the Masters in Public Health, and the Global Health Innovations specialisation of the online Global Masters in Public Health. He was appointed Director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes in the School of Public Health, in 2022.
Matthew qualified in Medicine from UCL (1998), obtained his MSc (Public Health in Developing Countries) with Distinction from the LSHTM (2004), and his DPhil (Public Health) from Oxford University in 2009. He obtained his Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in Public Health Medicine in March 2014. Prior to joining Imperial College London, Matthew worked for several years as a Primary Care physician in Brazil, as a WHO Polio Consultant in Ethiopia and as an HIV Technical Consultant in Mozambique. As a Specialist Registrar in Public Health, he also spent two years as a Global Health Advisor to the UK Department of Health. Matthew has been an advisor to the Pan-American Health Organization on issues related to health policy in Brazil; an Expert Witness at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health, an invited speaker at a number of international conferences and a guest lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at Kings College London.
Matthew is an Honorary Advisor to the Tropical Health Education Trust for his work on bidirectional learning with low-income country health systems, as well as Vice Chair of Primary Care International, a social enterprise supporting primary care training and delivery in low- and middle-income countries.
Matthew has published over one hundred and fifty articles in journals such as Nature Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, International Journal of Integrated Care, Globalization and Health, BMJ Quality and Safety, Qualitative Health Research, Administration and Society, and Public Administration and Development. He is the author of Decolonizing Healthcare Innovation: low-cost solutions from low-income countries (Routledge Press, 2023) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Healthcare Innovation (OUP, 2024).
He would welcome projects related to the following areas:
- Global Health, comparative health systems research
- Diffusion of innovation, Reverse Innovation, Frugal Innovation
- Primary care, Community services, Access and Secondary care utilization
- Brazil health system reform and impact of primary care
Publications
Journals
Junghans C, Harris M, Majeed A, 2024, Community health and wellbeing workers: an off-the-peg solution for improving health and care in England, British Journal of General Practice, Vol:74, ISSN:0960-1643, Pages:122-122
Williams A, Lennox L, Harris M, et al., 2023, Supporting translation of research evidence into practice—the use of Normalisation Process Theory to assess and inform implementation within randomised controlled trials: a systematic review, Implementation Science, Vol:18, ISSN:1748-5908
Junghans Minton C, Harris M, Williams A, et al., 2023, Learning from the universal, proactive outreach of the Brazilian Community Health Worker model: impact of a Community Health and Wellbeing Worker initiative on vaccination, cancer screening and NHS health check uptake in a deprived community in the UK, Bmc Health Services Research, Vol:23, ISSN:1472-6963
Brown C, Bhatti Y, Harris M, 2023, Environmental sustainability in healthcare systems: role of frugal innovation, Bmj, Vol:383, ISSN:1759-2151
Teixeira CS, Fernandes TG, Dias MAB, et al., 2023, Perinatal Health in Amazon Triple Border Region: Cross-Sectional Analysis Comparing Outcomes in the Brazilian, Peruvian and Colombian Population (Jun, 10.1007/s10995-023-03673-w, 2023), Maternal and Child Health Journal, Vol:27, ISSN:1092-7875, Pages:1885-1885