Our People

Dr Luke Allen

Research Member of Common Room

Senior Researcher

Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

Dr Luke Allen is a family Physician and Global Health Systems Researcher. He co-directs the Global Primary Care programme at the University of Oxford and serves as a primary health care advisor to both the WHO and the World Bank. His work spans policy, practice, and research-focusing on the reform of primary care systems and the politics of population-level prevention, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Luke trained in medicine and international health at Bristol and holds an MPH in Global Health from Harvard. He completed his family medicine training in Oxford, where he continues to practise as a part-time GP. He also holds a clinical research fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he has led implementation research across Botswana, India, Kenya and Nepal and co-founded the School’s Primary Health Care Group.

He has worked directly with governments across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, supporting health sector reform, advising on essential service packages, and contributing to major global policy efforts. He led technical inputs to the Declaration of Astana and co-authored the G7 initiative on primary health care. He sits on several editorial and advisory boards, including The Lancet’s Primary Care, the British Journal of General Practice, and the African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine. Luke teaches on the MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has published extensively and been featured in the BBC, NPR, New Scientist, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. He currently directs Healthier Systems, a consultancy advancing equity-oriented health policy through mixed-methods research.