Kirsten Mathieson is the Head of Health Policy and Advocacy at Save the Children, based in London, where she drives the Organisation’s health policy and advocacy work, with the aim of influencing global and national policy to address inequalities in health and promote Universal Health Coverage. She is responsible for developing and delivering health advocacy strategies, leads on engagement with key stakeholders, strengthens partnerships, and develops organisational policy positions. She also works with Save the Children country offices to support health policy, research and advocacy. Kirsten leads Save the Children’s immunisation policy and advocacy work, to drive progress towards universal immunisation coverage. Kirsten manages a team of Health Advocacy Advisers that work on maternal and child health, primary health care, Universal Health Coverage, immunisation, pneumonia and health financing.

Before joining Save the Children, Kirsten worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and UNDP in Kenya where she worked on a range of projects on gender, social equity and health. Kirsten has an Honours BA in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario (Canada) and an MA in Development Studies from the University of Rome, La Sapienza (Italy), and has completed courses in Health Economics from Queen Margaret University and Health Financing from the WHO. Her recent publications include Measuring Progress on the Pathway to Universal Immunisation Coverage and Further, Faster, Fairer: Reaching Every Last Child with Immunisation.

Save the Children works to ensure that every child realises their right to health, so that no child dies from preventable or treatable causes. We advocate at global, regional and national levels so that all children, regardless of where they live, have access to essential and quality health services, including immunisation, towards Universal Health Coverage. We work in several countries, delivering humanitarian and development programmes to improve health access.