Ole Norheim

Ole Norheim is the director of Bergen Center for Ethics and Priority Setting, a physician and professor of medical ethics in the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Global Health and Population in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research interests include theories of distributive justice, inequality in health, how ethics apply to priority setting in health systems, how to achieve universal health coverage, and the Sustainable Development Goal for health. He firmly believes that the priority setting for health should aim for the greatest number of years of healthy life for all and be fairly distributed. He is currently heading the research projects “Inclusive Evaluation of Public Health Interventions for the NRC Health Foundation” and “Disease Control Priorities – Ethiopia” for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a member of the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission and the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems. Norheim has chaired the 2009 revision of Norwegian Guidelines for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease of the World Health Organization, and the third Norwegian National Committee on Priority Setting in Health Care. Norheim has published more than 160 papers in journals such as The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, PLOS One, Health Policy and Planning, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Medical Ethics. He is a physician who graduated from the University of Bergen and holds a doctorate from the University of Oslo School of Medicine.