Deepak Behera

Dr. Deepak Behera is currently a Lecturer in the Economics and Finance Department at RMIT University Vietnam. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India, in January 2029. His doctoral thesis, Health Care Financing in Indian States: A Fiscal Space Perspective, examined the impact of macroeconomic policies on public healthcare expenditure and identified alternative revenue mobilization options at the regional level to prioritize healthcare in India.

His research interests include macroeconomics, public finance and policy, global economic issues, development economics, health economics and policy, Global public health.

Prior to joining RMIT, Dr. Behera worked with two leading public health institutes — the Public Health Foundation of India and the Asian Institute of Public Health. He later contributed to the development of a master’s program in Health Economics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India, where he also taught MSc Health Economics students. Over the years, he has supervised numerous Master of Public Health (MPH) students on diverse topics such as telemedicine, WASH practices, prisoners’ health, health-seeking behavior of tribal populations, healthcare utilization and access, menstrual hygiene, and the effectiveness of government health schemes in India.

Dr. Behera has extensive teaching experience in biostatistics, healthcare financing and management, healthcare modeling, health policy and practice, and introductory health economics. He has also worked with the Indian Institute of Public Health on the Diagnostics of Health System Transformation (DHST) Project, funded by Tata Trusts and HSTP.

In 2021, he was awarded the Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) Fellowship, during which he led a project on palliative healthcare services for cancer patients (2021–2023). He is an active member of Health Systems Global and currently serves as an Associate Editor of Health Economics Review (a Q1 journal).

His research spans healthcare utilization and access, efficiency of health spending, aging and cognitive health, financial protection against disability, healthcare financing, climate and health, disease risk factor analysis, and digital health interventions for aging populations. Dr. Behera has published extensively in high-impact journals such as The Lancet Global Health, BMC Public Health, Scientific Reports, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Archives of Public Health, Global Health Research and Policy, Maternal and Child Health Journal, Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, and Health Research Policy and Systems. His ongoing work focuses on maternal and child health, the global burden of disease, and the economic implications of healthcare challenges.