Overview
Gavin Yamey, MD, MPH, trained in clinical medicine at Oxford University and University College London, medical journalism and editing at the BMJ and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was Deputy Editor of the Western Journal of Medicine, Assistant Editor at the BMJ, a founding Senior Editor of PLOS Medicine, and the Principal Investigator on a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the launch of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. In 2009, he was awarded a Kaiser Family Mini-Media Fellowship in Global Health Reporting to examine the barriers to scaling up low cost, low tech health tools in Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.
Dr. Yamey serves on two international health commissions, the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health and the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. He has been an External Advisor to the WHO and to TDR, the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. Dr. Yamey has published extensively on global health, neglected diseases, health policy, and disparities in health and has been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio.
Before joining Duke, Dr. Yamey led the Evidence-to-Policy Initiative in the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and was an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatics at the UCSF School of Medicine.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Reflections on the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health's Global Health 2050 report - Authors' reply.
Journal Article Lancet · July 5, 2025 Full text Link to item CiteWhat are the key features of an equitable global vaccine strategy for the next pandemic? A qualitative study of pandemic control experts.
Journal Article Vaccine · June 2025 BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in global health multilateralism, particularly in its failure to achieve fair and equitable global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Soon after vaccines were available, huge inequitie ... Full text CiteWithdrawal of the United States from the WHO - How President Trump Is Weakening Public Health.
Journal Article The New England journal of medicine · April 2025 Full text CiteRecent Grants
Global Health 2050: Translating Analysis Into Policy
ResearchInvestigator · Awarded by New Venture Fund · 2024 - 2025Lancet Commission on Investing in Health - CIH 3.0
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation · 2023 - 2025Evidence generation for R&D ecosystem shifts
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation · 2023 - 2024View All Grants