Sarah Macfarlane, MS, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Epidemiology & Biostatistics
School of Medicine

sarah.macfarlane@ucsf.edu 415-502-6050

Sarah Macfarlane MSc, Ph.D., CStat, FFPH is Professor Emerita in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Medicine. She is a founding member of UCSF Global Health Sciences having served as Director of Program Planning and Development during the leadership of its Founding Executive Director, Dr. Haile Debas. In 2017, she received the UCSF Edward A. Dickson Emerita award.

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In 2005, Dr. Macfarlane led the development of the partnership between UCSF and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) which aims to strengthen teaching and research capacity in Tanzania. Between 2008 and 2011, she was the UCSF Principal Investigator for the MUHAS-UCSF Academic Learning Project supported the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She was the UCSF Principal Investigator for an NIH-supported project with Dartmouth College and MUHAS to strengthen research administration at MUHAS. She is currently the UCSF PI for the NIH-grant to MUHAS under the Health Education Partnership Initiatives (HEPI) and advisor to the Cancer Research Training Program in Tanzania.

Dr. Macfarlane’s research is in the area of strengthening health information and disease surveillance systems, health workforce development, and maternal and child health and nutrition. She has worked with international and African statistical agencies to strengthen national statistical systems to coordinate the collection and use of data across sectors. She also contributes to independent evaluations of research capacity-building efforts.

Between 1998 and 2004, Dr. Macfarlane served as Associate Director of Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation. She was responsible for strategy development and investments to build health system capacity to generate and translate knowledge into equity-enhancing interventions in sub-Saharan Africa and in South East Asia. In particular, she developed a program to coordinate the control of epidemic-prone diseases in Africa and Asia. This resulted in two regional inter-governmental networks to strengthen disease surveillance and response (the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network and the East African Integrated Disease Surveillance Network. In Asia, the subsequent outbreaks of SARS and H1N1, and in Africa, the outbreak of Ebola, and now the global COVID-19 pandemic, have demonstrated the significance of such regional collaborations. Dr. Macfarlane worked for many years at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where she became a Reader in Epidemiology and Statistics, and Head of the Unit for Statistics and Epidemiology. In 1994, she served as a visiting faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Macfarlane has worked with ministries of health, teaching and research institutions and international agencies in countries including: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Ireland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, UK, US, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

A British citizen, Dr. Macfarlane graduated with a degree in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Lancaster, and subsequently obtained a Masters in Operational Research from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in Medical Statistics from the University of London. She is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society, and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians.

Publications (101)

Top publication keywords:
Surgery Department, HospitalPublic HealthCommunity NetworksRural Health ServicesHospitals, DistrictInternational CooperationLactobacillus acidophilusProgram DevelopmentDeveloping CountriesRural PopulationHealth OccupationsTanzaniaGlobal HealthInterinstitutional RelationsAcademic Medical Centers

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