RGP Cycle Three Grantees and Projects

Danya Qato: Pharmacovigilance in the Arab World: A Comparative Study of Pharmaceutical Policies and Patient Safety in the Age of Access

The ability to access high quality pharmaceutical products and national capacities to monitor their safe use- activities collectively known as pharmacovigilance- varies widely in the Arab world. Despite the public health urgency, there is a paucity of rigorous empirical work that has been undertaken to systematically assess the unique political, developmental, and regulatory conditions that have enabled some populations to live in the ‘wild west’ of pharmaceutical regulation and others to live in relatively greater protection. To begin to address this inequality, we aim to conduct individual and cross country comparative analyses of pharmacovigilance and pharmaceutical policies in the Arab world. In the process, we will critically examine and interrogate the role of industry, namely the pharmaceutical industries and transnational health and development agencies, in shaping pharmaceutical (mis)use and regulation at the national and regional level. In addition, we will examine two case countries in detail- Palestine and Lebanon- and investigate the multiplicity of factors that have prevented development of a formal national program to monitor drug safety in each context. We will deploy mixed-methods research that combines a comprehensive survey questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and primary and secondary data analysis. The primary output of this project will be the creation of a dynamic, publicly accessible website that will serve as a forum for knowledge dissemination, networking, and expanded collaborations regionally and internationally. It is hoped that the generation of novel information emerging from this work can be harnessed to support the establishment of accountable, transparent, and evidence-based, patient-centered pharmaceutical and health policies in the Arab world.

Danya Qato holds a PhD in Health Services Research from the Brown University School of Public Health (2014), a PharmD from the University of Illinois, and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in International Health and Humanitarian Studies from Harvard University. At Brown, Dr. Qato was funded as an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Institutes of Health doctoral and postdoctoral research fellow in Comparative Effectiveness Research. Her substantive areas of research pertain to health and pharmaceutical policy, global health, epidemiology, and health disparities. She was an active participant and presenter at the inaugural conference on Drug Safety in the Arab World held in Rabat, Morocco, where she was a member of the working group that sought to harmonize drug safety terminology for Arab countries. Dr. Qato is also a member of both the Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance and the WHO Collaborating Center Working Group on Pharmacovigilance in the Arab World, based in Morocco.