Ilona Kickbusch

Ilona Kickbusch is the Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. Before returning to Europe, she was head of the global health programme at Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America.

Professor Kickbusch has had a distinguished career with the World Health Organization, at both the regional and global levels, and was responsible for the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, a seminal document in public health. She developed the “settings” approach and initiated programmes such as Healthy Cities, health-promoting schools, healthy workplaces, health-promoting hospitals and health in prisons. She also initiated WHO’s Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Study. She has contributed significantly to developing the concept of health literacy and most recently has spearheaded the field of global health diplomacy.

Professor Kickbusch has published and advised widely on health in all policies (HIAP) approaches and is considered one of the global leaders in this field. Most recently, she conducted a study on governance for health for WHO/Europe and has been deeply involved in the development of Health 2020, the European health policy framework. She is developing training materials for WHO on HIAP and was engaged in the global HIAP conference in Finland in 2013. She is also a member of a commission that advises on the future health of Portugal and serves on the boards of the Careum Foundation and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND).

She has published widely and is a member of a number of advisory boards in both the academic and the health policy arena. She has received many awards.