Elina Dale
Senior Adviser/Health Economics
Responsibilities
Since joining NIPH in 2021, Dale co-led the research work on procedural fairness on health financing for universal health coverage, including conducting literature review, identifying partners and working with country teams to develop case studies, developing and delivering presentations to expert groups, drafting the outline and selected chapters for the final report. She appeared as a guest editor in the special issue of Health Policy and Planning on Procedural fairness in health financing for universal health coverage: why, what and how. Since 2022, Dale has been leading the NIPH collaboration with Ukraine. Among other things, in her current role she worked closely with the WHO Regional Office for Europe in producing a policy paper, focused on Ukrainian refugees in Europe “Adjusting health financing for people fleeing conflict: policy guidance for countries in Europe”, published in April 2022, soon after the full-scale invasion. Dale has an extensive list of publications on Ukraine, including lead authorship of book chapters and reports such as "Health Financing Reform in Ukraine: Progress and Future Directions" (2022) and "Aligning health and decentralization reform in Ukraine" (2021). In addition, Dale has supported Ministry of Health and Care Services of Norway vis-a-vis WHO with technical inputs on issues related to universal health coverage, migration and social participation. Elina Dale is a health system financing specialist with more than fifteen years of experience in design and implementation of health system strengthening reforms, policy analysis, and research in global health. Prior to joining NIPH, she served as a Health Policy Adviser in WHO Country Office in Ukraine where she led a health system team, managing specialists in primary care, public health, health technologies and pharmaceuticals, and health financing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she led the essential health services pillar under the COVID-19 response plan as part of WHO country support. Before joining the Ukraine team, Dale worked in WHO – Geneva as a Health Financing Technical Officer, focused on strategic purchasing in health and health budgets. Dale completed her PhD at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health where she also served as a post-doctoral fellow. Her doctoral dissertation focused on financial incentives, health worker motivation and quality of care. Her research and work experience include a wide variety of contexts, spanning from Armenia and Tanzania to Peru and Afghanistan.