Dr Valentina Baltag

Valentina is the head  of the Adolescent and Young Adult unit in the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and Ageing in WHO’s HQ in Geneva. After a career in clinical practice and clinical research, she specialized in health systems management and public health issues in reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health. She worked in several countries in economic transition in the WHO European region including Central Asia, as well as in the WHO Regional Office for Europe. In her current position she focuses on developing standards, policies and strategies to strengthen governments’ response to achieve universal health coverage for world’s 1.2 billion adolescents, and technical assistance to Member States in evidence based planning of a multisectoral response for adolescent health. She is the editor of the International handbook on adolescent health and development: The public health response, and authored book chapters and other publications on primary care organization,  quality of care, school health services and preconception care. She holds a PhD from the Medical University in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova and MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.