Raj Panjabi

Panjabi is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Last Mile Health,[9] a global organization that supports frontline health workers and leaders around the world to strengthen rural and community health systems.[10] He co-founded this organisation in 2007 with a small team of Liberian civil war survivors and American health workers and $6,000 he had received as a wedding gift.

Following the 2013-16 West Africa Ebola epidemic, Last Mile Health partnered with the Government of Liberia and other organizations to design and scale a National Community Health Assistant Program, which has trained and equipped thousands of community health workers, nurses, physician assistants, and midwives serving 80% of the rural population. The workers in this program carry out nearly 1/3 of all confirmed malaria diagnoses in the country, have identified over 4,000 potential epidemic events, have done over 3 million home visits, treated and referred over 1 million sick children, improved skill birth attendance, and increased the rate of children receiving medical care by over 50% in Liberia's most remote communities.[11]

Through service, research and advocacy initiatives, Last Mile Health supports frontline health workers and leaders around the world to strengthen the quality of their community health systems, with a focus on multiple countries across west, east and southern Africa.[10]

In 2017, Panjabi and Last Mile Health received the $1 million TED Prize to launch a global training platform called the Community Health Academy.[12] In collaboration with several partners and governments, the Academy has launched online and mobile courses for frontline health leaders and providers working to strengthen community-based primary health care. The Academy's health systems leadership and clinical courses have enrolled over 50,000 current and future healthcare leaders, community health workers, nurses, midwives and frontline clinical providers, and other learners from nearly 200 countries, including the United States, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Philippines and Pakistan.[13]

Panjabi has led key efforts in response to 2013-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the COVID-19 pandemic. Panjabi and the Last Mile Health team played a significant role in the 2013-16 West Africa Ebola epidemic, helping train over a thousand frontline and community health workers, mobilize hundreds of tons of personal protective equipment and support the Government of Liberia to organize and lead its National Ebola Operations Center. Panjabi delivered testimony at the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy session, "A Progress Report of the West Africa Ebola Epidemic", arguing investments in rural community health workers can help make health systems responsive to Ebola and future epidemics.[14] Panjabi served as health advisor to the Africa Union Africa Against Ebola Trust. He and Last Mile Health received Clinton Global Citizen Award, along with a coalition, for leadership in response to the 2013-16 West Africa Ebola epidemic.

In response to COVID-19, Panjabi and Last Mile Health has supported the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as national governments, including Liberia, Malawi, Uganda, and Ethiopia to train frontline health workers to respond to COVID-19. He serves as technical advisor to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her role as Co-Chair of the WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Panjabi has worked as a physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Chelsea Community Health Center in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the COVID-19 epicenter in Massachusetts, where he has cared for patients with COVID and urgent care needs. He has served as co-chair of the COVID Response Fund at Echoing Green, a venture philanthropy investing in social entrepreneurs addressing the most pressing social challenges facing marginalized communities across America.

Panjabi has authored or co-authored over 50 publications.[15] He has chaired the Community Health Worker Exemplars in Global Health study with Gates Ventures (Private Office of Bill Gates) and the Gates Foundation, investigating lessons learned from exemplar community health systems in Brazil, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Liberia.[16] His and Last Mile Health's work on community and rural health care delivery has been published in The Lancet,[17] the Journal of the American Medical Association,[18] PLoS Medicine,[19] the Bulletin of the World Health Organization,[20] and the Journal of Global Health.[21]

Panjabi was a co-author of the report Strengthening Primary Health Care through Community Health Workers: Investment Case and Financing Recommendations. The report found that extending the reach of the primary health care system by investing in community health worker programs can deliver a high economic return—up to 10:1—and calls on government leaders, international financiers, donors, and the global health community broadly to take specific actions to support the financing and scale up of community health worker programs across sub-Saharan Africa.[22]

In 2017, Panjabi delivered a TED Talk entitled, "No One Should Die Because They Live Too Far From a Doctor."[12] Panjabi's TED Talk has been viewed over one million times and was selected as a Top 10 TED Talk of 2017, alongside TED Talks from Pope Francis and Elon Musk.[23] He gave additional TED talks in 2018 and 2019 on the power of investing in community and frontline health workers.[24][25] Panjabi spoke on a panel hosted by The Elders in celebration of Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday in South Africa, with Former Irish President, Mary Robinson, and Former Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.[26] Panjabi spoke at the TIME 100 Health Summit on Closing the Healthcare Gap.[27] Panjabi highlighted the role of investing in rural community health workers at the TIME-Fortune Global Forum hosted by Pope Francis in 2016.[28]

Panjabi delivered the commencement address at the graduation of Harvard Medical School in 2015, titled "The Power of Selfless Acts".[29] He has delivered medical grand rounds at Harvard-teaching hospitals including Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham & Women's Hospital, and gave a keynote address at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 2019 National Forum.[30]

Panjabi is a Gavi Champion, member of the International Advisory Group for Frontlines First at the Global Financing Facility of the World Bank Group, advisor to the Community Health Roadmap, and a member of the Community Health Worker Hub at the World Health Organization [WHO], where he served on the External Review Group for the WHO's guidelines on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programs. Panjabi has served as advisor to the World Health Organization's Ambassador for Health Workforce.

Panjabi has served on the boards of Echoing Green,[31] the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development[32] and Doctors for America.[33]