Gauden Galea
Dr Gauden GALEA has a deep passion for Python programming and the applications of data science to public health.
In his day job, he has recently retired (June 2025) from the post of Strategic Advisor to the Regional Director of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, heading the Special Initiative on Noncommunicable Diseases and Innovation. He had previously served as Director of the Division of Noncommunicable Diseases and Promoting Health through the Life-course, in WHO/Europe, between 2011 and 2018.
Over the past twenty-five years, he has contributed to the work on developing a national stepwise approach to NCDs, to the development of a process to link the prevention and control of NCDs to health systems, to the compilation of evidence linking NCDs to the global development agenda, to the renewal of life-course approaches to public health in Europe, and to action plans on women’s health and men’s health in Europe, among other leading work on NCDs, health promotion, and public health.
Dr Galea has worked for WHO since 1998. He has held posts in Suva, Manila, and Geneva in areas related to NCDs and Health Promotion. Between 2018 and 2022, he served as WHO Representative in China, during which period he also coordinated the programme on innovation in public health within the "For the Future" vision of the Western Pacific Region. He is a public health physician, and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom since 1999. In 2018, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Malta.
Session
Python is everywhere—except, it seems, in public health. As a global health practitioner working across continents, I have used Python behind the scenes to influence policy, support technical decisions, and uncover hidden patterns in health data. This talk will present rapid case studies of Python’s role in public health decision-making, from the Pacific Islands to China, from the Philippines to Europe.
- We will explore a network analysis of a social media debate on vaping that unexpectedly intersected with regional politics.
- We will examine visualisations of heart disease and stroke mortality that reframed health improvement strategies.
- We will explore a data pipeline on women's health that created the graphic backbone of a European report on the subject.
- We will look at a gamification of chronic disease progress in Europe that informed the European Programme of Work on United Action for Health 2026–2030.
Each of these examples demonstrates the power of Python’s ecosystem—not just for data science but for influencing real-world health policy.
Despite its versatility, Python remains underutilised in public health. Why does this gap exist? How can we bridge the divide between Python as a tool for developers and its potential as an engine for “hacking health”? This talk will close with a Call for Health, inviting collaboration on ways to make Python a more prominent force for population health.