Dr. Ana Langer joined the Harvard School of Public Health in July 2010 as a Professor of the Practice of Public Health (Department of Global Health and Population), and Director of the Women and Health Initiative and Maternal Health Task Force. Dr. Langer, a physician specializing in pediatrics and neonatology and a reproductive health expert, is respected as a leader in using research findings to influence policy and improve the overall quality of health care for women and families. Dr. Langer has conducted research in low and middle-income countries and published extensively on maternal mortality; psychosocial support during pregnancy, labor, and the post-partum period; quality of maternal health care; unsafe abortion; contraception (in particular, LARCs and emergency contraception); the introduction of evidence- based practices in maternal health services; strategies to improve quality of reproductive health care; integration of maternal and newborn health care; and maternal health in humanitarian settings. Since 2010, Dr. Langer is based in the US, where she familiarized herself with the complex reproductive health and rights’ challenges and opportunities in this country.
In collaboration with former Dean Julio Frenk and other colleagues inside and outside HSPH, Dr. Langer led the Lancet-HSPH Commission on Women and Health, which resulted in a seminal publication about this novel concept that looks at women’s health during the life course, the roles women play as health care givers, and the inextricable links between these two dimensions. As a follow-up to this work, Dr. Langer, in collaboration with the Harvard Global Health Institute, launched the LEAD fellowship, which is attracting emerging leaders from around the world.
Dr. Langer teaches at HSPH on global reproductive health, with a special focus on maternal health, and mentors post graduate students from Harvard and beyond. She serves in multiple advisory and editorial boards, including Merck for Mothers’ Global Advisory Board (2011-present), the Board of the Foundation for Medical Education and Research Foundation (GFMER) (2017- present), the Advisory Committee of NIH’s Office for Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) ) (2017-present), New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Steering Committee, The Lancet International Advisory Board (2005- present), The Lancet Public Health International Advisory Board (2016- present), among others.
Before joining the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Langer was President and CEO of EngenderHealth (2005- 2010), an international not-for-profit organization. Based in Mexico, Dr. Langer was the Population Council’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean from 1994-2005 and the Acting Director of the Global Reproductive Health program in 2002 and 2003. Previously, she was the chair of the Department of Research in Women and Children’s Health for the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico (1988-1994), where she led multiple clinical trials and other research projects, and established the first master’s program in reproductive health in Latin America.
Along her career, Dr. Langer has conducted extensive research and worked effectively on the translation of scientific evidence into policy and programs in the field of reproductive/maternal health in all three major developing regions, i.e., Sub Saharan Africa, South East Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, and currently also in the United States.