Health policy, dev econ, global health. Asst Prof Health Policy and Management @EmoryRollins. Previously @UCBerkeleySPH, @poverty_action. All views are my own.
Atlanta, GA
Joined September 2018
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Maria Dieci retweeted
I'm hiring 2-3 Associate Program Officers or Research Fellows for my team at Coefficient Giving.
The job involves grant-making and research on AI x global health and development. We're aiming to spend ~$100M in the next year, on questions ranging from how LMICs can grow if AI eats the export-services path, to whether AI-read TB X-rays work in clinics without a radiologist.
Apply here by Oct 4 if it sounds interesting: jobs.ashbyhq.com/coefficient…
Maria Dieci retweeted
"The U.S. is now operating an aid program without an aid agency."
@charlesjkenny & @e_collinson show how the bottleneck on issuing contracts without USAID's staff and structure is shaping a haphazard US aid system: smaller, lumpier, less strategic
indevelopmentmag.com/u-s-for…
🚨 New WP from our Kenya RCT. Tying malaria testing subsidies and provider incentives to diagnostic results roughly tripled testing and cut unnecessary antimalarial purchases. Because patients overestimate infection risk, these contracts deliver 4x welfare gains of free testing.
Diagnosis-contingent incentives that tie treatment incentives to diagnostic results reduce unnecessary treatment and improve welfare, from @MariaDieci, @paul_gertler, Jonathan T. Kolstad, and Carlos Paramo nber.org/papers/w35543
Maria Dieci retweeted
On the cover of The Lancet:
Editorial — “Robert F Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure”
Read the latest issue: spkl.io/6011Aa3Et
ALT Cover of The Lancet, 28 February 2026 issue. The quote: \u201CThe destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm.\u201D
Maria Dieci retweeted
Bill Foege, rest in peace. He was a hero of public health, key to the eradication of smallpox (which killed more than half a billion people), a former head of CDC, and unfailingly wise, kind, and persistent.
@celinegounder recalls his life beautifully: wapo.st/3M51JVO
Maria Dieci retweeted
Heartbreaking piece from @propublica about how Trump's dismantling of USAID is leading to the slow starvation of refugees: propublica.org/article/kenya… It's hard to fathom the cruelty of officials who would abruptly pull food from families in refugee camps, leaving them nothing.
Maria Dieci retweeted
Can paying people to vaccinate backfire?
A new study finds that 1 in 7 vaccine-hesitant adults who would have accepted a COVID-19 shot declined when offered money. Incentives ⬇️ trust in vaccine safety & weakened prosocial motivation to vaccinate. tinyurl.com/4r885vkx
Maria Dieci retweeted
In my many lectures on where data comes from, I start with: "The CDC estimates the obesity rate in the US is 41.6%. How do they know?" People have all kinds of ideas, but you quickly realize that to know this in a reliable way you need to weigh a random sample of Americans (1/2)
Maria Dieci retweeted
The American Academy of Pediatrics joined fellow medical leaders in a new op-ed in @statnews with a clear, urgent message: Vaccines work—and they save lives. statnews.com/2025/06/26/vacc…
Maria Dieci retweeted
"We use our estimates on the impact of Gavi funding on child mortality to calculate the number of lives saved by Gavi support, which is approximately 1.5 million lives."
Kartini Shastry & Daniel Tortorice's research highlights the importance of Gavi ⤵️ voxdev.org/topic/health/effe…
Maria Dieci retweeted
This is a travesty and a nightmare. The US was a founder of @Gavi. It lowers vaccine costs for the world, has vaccinated 1B children, and averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year -- and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.
RFK Jr. says US won’t donate to global vaccine effort ow.ly/auRQ106cRf4
Maria Dieci retweeted
The Editorial Boards of leading health econ journals are issuing a Joint Statement of Principles on Editorial Independence. In these troubled times some scholars worry their work might suffer ideological attack. We reaffirm our commitment to unfettered scholarship. Please repost.
Maria Dieci retweeted
A single price for pharmaceuticals is both inefficient and inequitable. Differential pricing improves societal welfare (under most conditions). There is sufficient and strong evidence for this. Also, an MFN clause hurts the poorest countries the most. Understandably, the US thinks it is paying a higher share of R&D, but there are other ways to balance this, including value-based tiering. I hope the detailed policy proposal behind the EO has some conditionality zones for the MFN clause. Links to my review studies and past work on this are in the following posts.
Excellent highlight of PRO (proimpact.tools/), an innovative and essential initiative moving philanthropic dollars to urgent global projects most in need after USAID funding cuts
npr.org/sections/goats-and-s…
Maria Dieci retweeted
The NIH plans to defund the WHI, the largest clinical trial ever for women that was meant to catch up on missed research. This study has been a fountain of knowledge. The hatred of women from this administration is really from cradle to grave. science.org/content/article/…
Maria Dieci retweeted
After the USAID cuts, the total number of awardees has fallen from 2,562 to 306.
@JustinSandefur & @charlesjkenny warn the cuts will considerably reduce capacity to navigate the complexities of USAID contracting:
bit.ly/4joUX8X
Maria Dieci retweeted
Thanks to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, more than 1 billion children have been immunized against the world’s deadliest diseases, like tuberculosis and malaria. Now the U.S. government is reportedly planning to end its support for Gavi—support that’s been critical to this progress for nearly 25 years.
It breaks my heart to think that more than a million children in low-income countries could die over the next five years because of this decision.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the world’s success in immunizing children is one of the greatest achievements in history. It’s also one of the hardest-won. Mothers around the world line up for hours in the heat to get vaccines for their children, women travel through mountains on foot to administer them, and thousands of scientists dedicate their lives to developing them—all because there’s nothing more important than saving the life of a child.
Leaders must reconsider the plan to end support for Gavi. Unraveling one of the most effective systems in global health would be an absolutely devastating choice.
Maria Dieci retweeted
Each dot represents 10 people whose lives depend on US foreign aid for HIV prevention & treatment.
Without it, 1.6m people could die per year.
@charlesjkenny & I were pleased to work with @NickKristof and the NYT data viz team to show the stakes of what’s happening at USAID.
Maria Dieci retweeted
We estimate 100 people per hour, including 68 children, are dying because of the abrupt halt in funding.
impactcounter.com/dashboard?…
Elon Musk says that no one has died because he slashed humanitarian aid. I went to South Sudan to check if that's true. It's not. Within an hour of starting interviews, I had the names of a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl who had died because of decisions by wealthy men in Washington.
The visit that moved me the most was to a remote area that used to have no health care, where women routinely died in childbirth. Then a US-funded maternity clinic opened through @UNFPA in December, and not one woman has died since. I showed up, and people mistakenly thought I was responsible for the clinic. One new mom wanted to name her baby for me, and the village elders thanked me and hailed America's generosity. What they didn't know was that Trump/Musk had cut all funding for UNFPA and that as a result the maternity clinic will close this month, and women will once again be bleeding to death in the dust.
Here's a giftlink to my report from ground level about what the shutdown of USAID means: nytimes.com/interactive/2025…
