MICHAEL R. REICH
Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy Emeritus
Michael R. Reich is the Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy, Emeritus, in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Reich's research program addresses the political dimensions of public health policy, and his research interests include health system strengthening and reform, access to medicines and pharmaceutical policy, and the political economy of the policy-making process.
Dr. Reich obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at Yale University in 1981 after receiving his B.A. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and M.A. in East Asian Studies, both also at Yale. After joining the Harvard faculty, he helped establish the Takemi Program in International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1983, for which he has served as Director since 1988.
Dr. Reich has worked on health systems issues with colleagues at Harvard for over two decades and is faculty director of the World Bank Flagship Course on Health System Strengthening and Sustainable Financing. He coauthored a landmark book on health systems Getting Health Reform Right: A Guide to Improving Performance and Equity (by M.J. Roberts, W. Hsiao, P. Berman, and M.R. Reich, Oxford, 2004). He is also founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Health Systems & Reform, whose first issue was published in January 2015.
Dr. Reich has been engaged with health policy issues in Japan for over four decades. On April 29, 2015, the government of Japan announced in its Spring Honors List the award of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon to Dr. Reich for his outstanding contribution to the promotion of Japan's policy for global public health, as well as for advancing public health in Japan.
In November 2016, he received the Award for Lifetime Service to the Field of Health Policy and Systems Research from the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and from Health Systems Global.