Image of Chunling Lu

Chunling Lu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Lu studied international relations (BA) and political science (MA) at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and sociology (MA) and applied statistics (MS) at Syracuse University, where she also received her PhD in economics. She received postdoctoral training on health care policy analysis at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, and joined the School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in 2008 after three-years work at the Harvard Institute for Global Health as Senior Research Associate.

Affliates

Dr. Lu’s research has three emphases: (1) investigating child and adolescent health and well-being at the global, regional, and country levels with a special focus on resources invested and the related outcomes; (2) conducting economic evaluation of health policy or medical interventions; and (3) developing data and methods to facilitate the investigations in the first and second areas. Dr. Lu has been serving as a member of the Joint Technical Working Group for Early Childhood Development Metrics hosted by the UNICEF, WHO, and World Bank. She is a technical consultant and contributor to the UNESCO Global Report on Early Childhood Care & Education in 2024. She serves as a commissioner to the Lancet Series on Adolescent Health and Well-Being (2022-2025) and leads an investigation on financing adolescent health and well-being. She also leads a series, commissioned by The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, on resource allocation to child and adolescent mental health and related cost-effective interventions in the Western Pacific region. Dr. Lu is leading costs and cost-effectiveness analyses for projects, funded by NIH, that focus on delivering mental health and nurturing care by training community health workers in rural India and Guatemala. She obtained the Fulbright US Scholarship and conducted research and teaching at the National Taiwan University in 2024.   

Inequalities in socio-emotional development and positive parenting during childhood: Evidence from China 2010-2014.
Authors: Authors: Li Z, Jiang Y, Li M, Lu C.
SSM Popul Health
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Examining racial/ethnic differences in patterns of benzodiazepine prescription and misuse.
Authors: Authors: Cook B, Creedon T, Wang Y, Lu C, Carson N, Jules P, Lee E, Alegría M.
Drug Alcohol Depend
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Decomposing health inequality with population-based surveys: a case study in Rwanda.
Authors: Authors: Liu K, Lu C.
Int J Equity Health
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Global child and adolescent mental health: The orphan of development assistance for health.
Authors: Authors: Lu C, Li Z, Patel V.
PLoS Med
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Global development assistance for adolescent health from 2003 and 2015
Authors: Authors: Li Z, Li M, Patton G, Lu C
JAMA Network Open
Is the medical financial assistance program an effective supplement to social health insurance for low-income households in China? A cross-sectional study.
Authors: Authors: Liu K, Yang J, Lu C.
Int J Equity Health
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Sensitivity of measuring the progress in financial risk protection to survey design and its socioeconomic and demographic determinants: A case study in Rwanda.
Authors: Authors: Lu C, Liu K, Li L, Yang Y.
Soc Sci Med
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Investing in the foundation of sustainable development: pathways to scale up for early childhood development.
Authors: Authors: Richter LM, Daelmans B, Lombardi J, Heymann J, Boo FL, Behrman JR, Lu C, Lucas JE, Perez-Escamilla R, Dua T, Bhutta ZA, Stenberg K, Gertler P, Darmstadt GL.
Lancet
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Early childhood development coming of age: science through the life course.
Authors: Authors: Black MM, Walker SP, Fernald LCH, Andersen CT, DiGirolamo AM, Lu C, McCoy DC, Fink G, Shawar YR, Shiffman J, Devercelli AE, Wodon QT, Vargas-Barón E, Grantham-McGregor S.
Lancet
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Does foreign aid crowd out government investments? Evidence from rural health centers in Rwanda
Authors: Authors: Lu C, Cook Ben, Desmond C
BMJ Global Health