Here's To World Health

Laurette Dubé’s career as a nutritionist seems so distant that she calls it “a former life.” Since then she has completed an MBA in Finance, a master’s of professional studies in marketing and a PhD in consumer psychology. She joined the Desautels Faculty of Management as a consumer psychologist in 1995, focusing her research on “non-rational” aspects of decision-making and behavior. In 2000, Dubé found new inspiration in her old career, redirecting her research efforts toward questions of global health. She spearheaded the transdisciplinary Brain-to-Society research program, which initially applied cutting-edge neuroscience and systems science to questions of nutrition and obesity. In 2003, she launched the McGill Health Challenge Think Tanks, annual explorations of the intersection of health and economics. After five successful years, which saw luminaries such as economist Paul Krugman and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, both Nobel laureates, join Think Tank discussions, Dubé and her collaborators and partners grew that initiative into the new McGill World Platform for Health and Economic Convergence. Led by the Desautels Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Medicine, the MWP aims to connect the world’s top thinkers and practitioners in science, business, government and health. “Our objective is to put health into economic decisions at all levels,” says Dubé, “and, conversely, to weave economic considerations into health, health care delivery and public health.” She spoke to Headway following the launch of the first annual MWP “Think-and-Do Tank,” held at McGill during November 2009.