Pepita Barlow is Assistant Professor of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also Co-Director of the MSc in International Health Policy. Before joining the LSE, Dr Barlow was a Research Associate at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. She previously completed a DPhil (PhD) in Sociology at the University of Oxford, an MSc in Sociology, also at Oxford, and a BSc in Economics with Economic History at the LSE. She also worked briefly at the Institute for Government and has served as a scientific adviser to the World Health Organization.

Dr Barlow’s research examines how policies and actors outside the health sector impact on health and health policy. As a social scientist with training in sociology and economics, Dr Barlow examines these processes by drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives, quasi-experimental methods, and novel text data. Her most recent research has focused on the impacts of trade liberalisation, including Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). This includes a series of papers evaluating the role of US FTAs in the global diffusion of ‘obesogenic’ food environments, and whether trade liberalisation exposes governments in low- and middle-income countries to pressure to change or repeal their public health policies. In other work, she has evaluated the health impacts of labour market regulations, austerity, and educational reforms.

CV

Teaching

Programme Co-Director, MSc International Health Policy
HP436 Evidence Appraisal for Health Policy Analysis
HP433 Health Care Regulation
HP4F1E Introduction to Evaluation in Healthcare