Deepak Behera

Dr. Deepak Behera is a Lecturer in the Economics and Finance Department at RMIT University Vietnam. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India. His doctoral research, Health Care Financing in Indian States: A Fiscal Space Perspective, examined the impact of macroeconomic policies on public healthcare expenditure and explored sustainable fiscal strategies to strengthen healthcare financing at the state level.

 

Dr. Behera's research sits at the intersection of economics and public health, with interests spanning macroeconomics, public finance and policy, development economics, health economics, global public health, and global economic issues. His current research focuses on healthcare financing, healthcare utilization and access, efficiency of health spending, aging and cognitive health, financial protection, climate and health, disease risk factors, digital health, maternal and child health, and the Global Burden of Disease.

 

Before joining RMIT University Vietnam, Dr. Behera worked at the Public Health Foundation of India and the Asian Institute of Public Health. He later joined the Manipal School of Commerce and Economics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India, where he contributed to the development of the MSc Health Economics and MSc Economics programs. He has taught courses in health economics, healthcare financing and management, healthcare modelling, health policy, biostatistics, macroeconomics, and econometrics, and has supervised postgraduate research across a wide range of public health and economics topics.

 

Dr. Behera has contributed to several national and international research projects, including the Diagnostics of Health System Transformation (DHST) Project funded by Tata Trusts and the Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP). In 2021, he was awarded the Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) Fellowship, during which he led a research project on palliative healthcare services for cancer patients.

 

He has published extensively in leading international journals, including The Lancet Global Health, BMC Public Health, Scientific Reports, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Alzheimer's & Dementia, and Health Economics Review. He also serves as an Associate Editor of Health Economics Review and is an active member of Health Systems Global.