Carleigh Krubiner, PhD

Carleigh Krubiner’s research interests include resource allocation and priority-setting for health, ethical research addressing women’s health needs surrounding pregnancy, the design of health incentive programs such as conditional cash transfers (CCTs), health systems strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, and social justice theory.

Carleigh is currently leading work with colleagues in South Africa on the design and testing of an ethics framework for health priority setting under the envisioned National Health Insurance (NHI) – a tool and process that aims to ensure decisions about the inclusion or exclusion of new health technologies in the South African benefits package are ethically justifiable and informed by local values. The South African Values and Ethics for Universal Health Coverage (SAVE-UHC) Project  is a unique 3-year research project funded by the Wellcome Trust bringing together a variety of country stakeholders from national and provincial government, patient advocacy groups, medical associations, civil society organisations, private insurers, and academic institutions to guide the future of health priority-setting for NHI in South Africa. Read more here.

 Carleigh has also led work developing actionable, consensus-driven ethics guidance on how to equitably include the interests of pregnant women and their offspring in vaccine R&D for priority pathogens and emerging epidemic threats. The Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics, and New Technologies (PREVENT) Project has developed two sets of guidance: the first specific to the Zika crisis (Pregnant Women & the Zika Virus Vaccine Research Agenda: Ethics Guidance on Priorities, Inclusion, and Evidence Generation) and the second addressing the broader context of emerging and re-emerging pathogens (Pregnant Women & Vaccines Against Emerging Epidemic Threats: Ethics Guidance on Preparedness, Research & Response). Together, these guidances provide a roadmap for the ethically responsible, socially just, and respectful inclusion of the interests of pregnant women in the development and deployment of vaccines against emerging pathogens.