Elizabeth Pisani (born 1964) is a British-American epidemiologist, public health consultant, author and journalist. She is an academic researcher and the director of Ternyata Ltd., a public health consultancy based in London, UK.^[1] Her research investigates the ways in which politics, economics and culture influence public health. This has included markets for substandard and falsified medicines and HIV. Before this, Pisani was a journalist who worked as a correspondent for Reuters in several Asian countries.

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Quick Facts Born, Nationality ...

Elizabeth Pisani
Pisani at the 2014 QED Conference
Born	1964 (age 59–60) United States
Nationality	American, British
Alma mater	Oxford University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,
Occupation(s)	Epidemiologist, analyst, author
Notable work	The Wisdom of Whores, Indonesia, etc.
Website	www.wisdomofwhores.com, indonesiaetc.com

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Her first book The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS,^[2] which examines factors influencing decision-making for HIV prevention, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2009.^[3] Pisani is also known for her 2014 travel book Indonesia Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation, in addition to other writings on the society and politics of Indonesia.

Pisani holds (or has held) visiting or honorary posts at  Universitas Pancasila Jakarta (Professor); the George Institute for Global Health (Professorial Fellow);  London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Honorary Associate Professor);  the Policy Institute, King's College London (Senior Research Fellow); Imperial College London (Reader); and the School of Health Policy and Management at Erasmus University Rotterdam (Associate Professor).

She was born in the United States and educated in several European countries. She graduated from Oxford University with an MA in classical Chinese in 1986.^[4] After working as a journalist for many years, Pisani changed professional course, taking an MSc in Medical Demography and later a PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.^[5]

After her first degree, Pisani joined Reuters as a foreign correspondent,^[6] working in Hong Kong, India and Indonesia. She also reported at various times for The Economist and the Asia Times from Jakarta, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Brussels and Nairobi.^{[citation needed]} During her times as a journalist she covered major political events such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations^[7] and the insurgency in Aceh^{[citation needed]} as well as a wide range of business stories.

After retraining as an epidemiologist,^[when?] Pisani focused on HIV for over a decade, conducting research and working as an advisor for the Ministries of Health of China, Indonesia, East Timor and the Philippines, and for organisations such as the UNAIDS, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Bank, and the World Health Organization. Her work has focused on HIV, sexually transmitted infections and sexual and drug-taking behaviour, and on building disease surveillance systems.^{[citation needed]}

In the late 2000s, she began working with the Wellcome Trust and other major funders of public health research to increase the sharing of data between scientists so that more knowledge can be squeezed out of expensive field research.^[8] She also worked with Wellcome to explore ways of increasing engagement between scientists and society in the countries where they sponsor major research programmes. One outcome of this was the "Foreign Bodies, Common Ground" exhibition,^[9] bringing together art from residencies in research centres in Thailand, Vietnam, Malawi, Kenya, South Africa and the UK. In 2016, Pisani initiated a collaboration with an East London based orchestra, the Grand Union Orchestra, which led to "Song of Contagion", a jazz show which tried to explore the reasons for bad decision-making in global health through music.^[10][11]

Pisani wrote the first two editions of the biennial global report on AIDS for UNAIDS in 1998.^[12]

In 2008, she published her first book The Wisdom of Whores,^[2] which argues that a substantial portion of the funding devoted to HIV and AIDS is wasted on ineffective programming, the result of science and good public health policy being trumped by politics and ideology.^[13] It was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction in 2009.^[3] The following year, she gave a TED talk arguing that the "rational" health belief model that underpins many public health campaigns are irrational from the point of view of those they target.^[14]

In the mid-2010s, Pisani's interest turned to the quality of medicines. With research grant support from the Wellcome Trust and Erasmus University Rotterdam, she led a four-country study into the political and economic factors driving the market for substandard and falsified medicines, especially in middle income countries,^[15] and continues to work in this area.

In late 2011, Pisani took a sabbatical from her day job to explore Indonesia, where she had worked from 1988 – 1991 as a foreign correspondent, and from 2001 to 2005 in her capacity as an epidemiologist and public health advocate. She blogged about her travels at Portrait Indonesia from late 2011-2013.^[29] At the end of 2013, she moved her blog to a new site, Indonesia, Etc.^[30] Her travels there form the basis of a book, Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation,^[31] which was published to critical acclaim in June 2014. The book was listed among the best non-fiction books of 2014 by The Economist^[32] and by The Wall Street Journal.^[33]

Since working on Indonesia, Etc., Pisani has contributed articles on Indonesian politics, particularly the 2014 presidential election, to Foreign Affairs,^[34] The New York Times^[35][36] and Nikkei Asia Review.^[37][38] Pisani has also provided commentary on corruption in Indonesia.^[39][40]

In The Wisdom of Whores, Pisani wrote, "I went to Sunday School as a child, and I still go to church every now and then. But I am unable to understand religious convictions or religious ideologies that stand in the way of saving hundreds of thousands of lives."^[13]

In addition to English, she is fluent in French and Spanish, and has learned Chinese and Indonesian.^{[citation needed]}