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Dr Duane Blaauw
Duane Blaauw is a senior researcher in health systems and health policy research at the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) in the School of Public Health (SPH) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a medical doctor and public health specialist with additional qualifications in public management, tropical medicine, occupational health and medical science.
He has 20 years of experience in supporting health service development at various levels of the public health system in South Africa with an emphasis on human resources, health policy analysis, health planning, health information systems and health management. At CHP he has participated in a number of international collaborative research programmes on health systems and human resources for health.
His research is primarily quantitative. His current research interests include human resources for health, health worker practice and motivation, antibiotic-prescribing behaviour, incentives, discrete choice experiments, behavioural and experimental economics.
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Dr Prudence Ditlopo
Dr Prudence Ditlopo is a senior researcher at the Centre for Health Policy (CHP). She obtained her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2016. She has managed evaluation studies and has experience in implementing both qualitative and quantitative research projects. At CHP, she has coordinated several HRH projects including a 3-country project looking at the recruitment, motivation and retention of health care workers, policy analysis of the implementation of nursing policies in South Africa, and a longitudinal study focusing on the career choices and job location decisions of a cohort of nurses.
Dr Ditlopo is a recipient of a Thuthuka grant from the National Research Foundation in recognition of her novel research on health workforce governance at primary health care level.
In 2021, she was an inaugural fellow of the Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF). Her research interests are health workforce governance, health worker practice and motivation, incentives, and health policy analysis.
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Professor Laetitia Rispel
Professor Laetitia Rispel holds a South African Research Chair, entitled Research on the Health Workforce for Equity and Quality and is Professor of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is both a former Head of the Wits School of Public Health (2012-2017), and a former Head of the Gauteng Provincial Government Department of Health (2001-2006).
Professor Rispel obtained a PhD from Wits University, and has additional qualifications in epidemiology, economics, management, and leadership. She has extensive and wide-ranging experience of research, teaching, and health leadership in different settings, and has published on different aspects of health policy and the transformation of the South African health system. She has won several national and international awards. In June 2020, she completed her term as the president of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the first woman from Africa in the more than 50-year history of the organisation to achieve this honour.
In December 2022, Professor Rispel graduated with a Doctor of Science in Medicine from Wits University. She also obtained an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town in recognition of her service and outstanding contribution to the public healthcare sector in South Africa and abroad.
Her research interests are human resources for health, quality of care, the performance of the health care system; and the intersection of these with the social determinants of health.
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Ms Janine White
Dr Janine White is a lecturer in the Wits School of Public Health (WSPH) and participates in the new generation of academics’ programme (nGAP) of the Department of Higher Education and Training. Janine obtained her master’s degree at the University of South Africa with distinction (2016) and her PhD in Public Health at Wits University in 2021.
Her research interests are public mental health, the social determinants of health including mental health, theories of social exclusion and how these intersect with migrants, health professionals and the public healthcare system in South Africa.
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Dr Nonhlanhla Nxumalo
Dr Nonhlanhla Nxumalo is Director and senior researcher at the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) in the Wits School of Public Health. A qualified speech therapist and audiologist, Nonhlanhla has specialised in public health, with both a master’s and PhD from Wits University. She has more than 10 years’ experience as a health policy and systems researcher, collaborating with both national and international partners. Dr Nxumalo’s research has included studies on leadership and management, the implementation of accountability mechanisms and the micro-practices of governance at the district health level in South Africa.
Her research interests are health policy analysis, access to health care, and human resources for health, particularly community health workers (CHWs) who straddle the informal and formal health system. Her current research aims to examine the implementation of the CHW programme in South Africa, the policy and practice lessons from other countries, and the extent to which the CHW programme can or should contribute to universal health coverage.
She is also interested in exploring the role of community health workers in mental health. Dr Nxumalo is an inaugural member of the Female Academic Leaders Fellowship at Wits University.
