Sean Sylvia
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Health Policy Management
sean.sylvia@unc.edu
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As a health and development economist, Sean Sylvia researches ways to improve the delivery of health care in middle-income countries. Much of his work has been in China, where he has studied interventions to improve early childhood health and development, school-based health and nutrition programs, the quality of primary care provided by rural clinicians, the use of antibiotics, digital health and other topics.
Sean Sylvia is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Sylvia's research focuses on designing and evaluating innovative approaches to improve the delivery of healthcare and social services in middle-income countries. Most of his research uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the causal impacts of interventions and policies and relies heavily on primary data collection through large-scale surveys and randomized trials. In past projects, he’s studied the design of performance pay programs, training interventions for primary healthcare providers, school-based health and nutrition programs, the use of antibiotics, and community health worker interventions to improve early childhood health and development, and other topics. Much of his work has been in China, where he has long-term, close collaborations with researchers and practitioners around the country.