Dan Wu, PhD

Dan Wu, PhD, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and research advisor at the Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health, UNC Project-China. Dr. Wu received her doctorate in Family Medicine and Primary Care from The University of Hong Kong. She completed her postdoctoral training at the UNC Project-China and LSHTM.  

Dr. Wu has a special research interest in using innovative strategies to promote public health. She has been intensively engaged in designing and implementing innovative health interventions, such as crowdsourcing, pay-it-forward, and secondary distribution research to improve uptake of essential public health services among key populations. Crowdsourcing has a group of individuals to solve a problem then share optimal solutions back with the community. She is currently leading a global crowdsourcing open call to solicit patient and advocate stories related to viral hepatitis, aiming to amplify the voices of neglected communities for spurring policy changes in local contexts. Pay-it-forward gives an individual a free service as a gift from the community then asks the individual if she/he is willing to donate to support more future users. Dr. Wu is currently leading a couple of pay-it-forward pilot interventions to improve influenza and HPV vaccine uptake among key populations in China.