Ana Rita González founded global health consulting firm Policy Wisdom, LLC in 2010 to work with governments, NGOs and the private sector as they try to identify and advance solutions to public health issues. The organization has worked in over 145 countries and guides local, national and supranational policy makers and agency leaders in developing evidence-and data-driven public health initiatives that target the specific needs of unique populations.
Dr. González also has extensive experience in health systems research. She has served as a hospital director in Puerto Rico and later worked with the World Health Organization- Pan American Health Organization (WHO-PAHO). Her work at the WHO-PAHO included significant focus on health care reform design, health policy planning and influencing, crisis management, and policies for disaster preparedness. She has been especially outspoken about the health system of Puerto Rico, where inefficiencies in infrastructure were exposed after hurricane Maria in 2017 and again after Fiona in 2022. She received her ScD from the Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1984.
She is also the creator of the Historical Integrative Policy–Epidemiology Synthesis (HIPES) approach to analyze the relationship between public health policies and population health outcomes. Dr. González’s published work applies a health policy lens to topics including equity, democracy, cancer, precision medicine, geopolitics, health system funding, and health outcomes. In 2024, Ana Rita was awarded the Global Achievement Alumni Award by Johns Hopkins University.