Rajesh Ramesh Panjabi

Rajesh Ramesh Panjabi, MD

Instructor in Medicine and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine Affiliate

Raj Panjabi is Co-Founder/CEO of Last Mile Health and Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

At age 9, Dr. Panjabi escaped a civil war in his home country of Liberia. He returned as a 24- year-old medical student to serve the people he had left behind, co-founding Last Mile Health, an affiliate of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Last Mile Health saves lives in the world's most remote communities by partnering with governments to design, scale and advocate for national networks of community health professionals. Dr. Panjabi and Last Mile Health's work has been published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, the Lancet, JAMA, and PLoS Medicine and has been featured by TIME, Fortune, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and the New York Times.

In 2016, TIME Magazine and President Bill Clinton named Dr. Panjabi to its annual list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”, recognizing Last Mile Health's work "to put a health care worker within reach of everyone everywhere." In 2015, Fortune Magazine named Dr. Panjabi one of the "World’s 50 Greatest Leaders," recognizing Last Mile Health's work to support Liberian Government to build a national community health workforce. Dr. Panjabi is a Forbes 400 Philanthropy Fellow, a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur, and an Echoing Green Fellow. He is a recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award, Outstanding Recent Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins, the Distinguished Young Alumni Award from the University of North Carolina, and the Global Citizen Movement Award.

Dr. Panjabi is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, received a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and trained in Internal Medicine and Primary Care as a Resident and Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

A Community Health Worker Intervention to Increase Childhood Disease Treatment Coverage in Rural Liberia: A Controlled Before-and-After Evaluation.
Authors: Authors: White EE, Downey J, Sathananthan V, Kanjee Z, Kenny A, Waters A, Rabinowich J, Raghavan M, Dorr L, Halder A, Nyumah J, Duokie D, Boima T, Panjabi R, Siedner MJ, Kraemer JD.
Am J Public Health
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Implementation research on community health workers' provision of maternal and child health services in rural Liberia.
Authors: Authors: Luckow PW, Kenny A, White E, Ballard M, Dorr L, Erlandson K, Grant B, Johnson A, Lorenzen B, Mukherjee S, Ly EJ, McDaniel A, Nowine N, Sathananthan V, Sechler GA, Kraemer JD, Siedner MJ, Panjabi R.
Bull World Health Organ
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Charting health system reconstruction in post-war Liberia: a comparison of rural vs. remote healthcare utilization.
Authors: Authors: Kentoffio K, Kraemer JD, Griffiths T, Kenny A, Panjabi R, Sechler GA, Selinsky S, Siedner MJ.
BMC Health Serv Res
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Community health worker programmes after the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak.
Authors: Authors: Perry HB, Dhillon RS, Liu A, Chitnis K, Panjabi R, Palazuelos D, Koffi AK, Kandeh JN, Camara M, Camara R, Nyenswah T.
Bull World Health Organ
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Policy Monograph from 2015 Princeton-Fung Global Forum
Authors: Authors: Panjabi R
The Bravery of Ordinary Community Health Workers was Critical to Containing Ebola in Liberia
Remoteness and maternal and child health service utilization in rural Liberia: A population-based survey.
Authors: Authors: Kenny A, Basu G, Ballard M, Griffiths T, Kentoffio K, Niyonzima JB, Sechler GA, Selinsky S, Panjabi RR, Siedner MJ, Kraemer JD.
J Glob Health
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Honoring the Heroes of the Ebola Epidemic
Authors: Authors: Panjabi R
2016.
Q&A: Serving the World's Most Remote Villages
Authors: Authors: Huber BR, Panjabi R
2015.