The Roux Prize
Congratulations to Professor Ibrahim Abubakar – 2023 Roux Prize winner.
“What drives me each day is the firm belief that the existence of health inequalities is not a given – it is within our reach to eliminate inequitable access to care if we work collectively to improve the lives and conditions of the most disadvantaged among us,” said Prof. Abubakar, Dean of Faculty of Population Health Sciences at University College London.
Prof. Abubakar’s greatest achievement is his recent work on The Lancet Nigeria Commission that directly led to Nigeria’s passing a new law mandating basic health insurance and the creation of a fund for vulnerable populations that covers 83 million underprivileged people.
View past awardees
Past recipients of the prize have gone on to achieve great accomplishments in public health.
Nomination information
Nominations for 2023 are now closed. Please stay tuned for 2024 nominations!
The Roux Prize is intended for anyone who has used health evidence in innovative ways to improve the health of the population. We welcome diverse entries: winners might be workers within government agencies, researchers at academic institutions, volunteers in charitable organizations, or health providers working in the community.
Each year’s winner receives $100,000 that can be put toward anything that the winner wishes. Past recipients have used their winnings to fund academic scholarships, their research, or their own life’s causes.
Please include the following information in the nomination form:
- Nominee’s personal information: title, name, degrees, position or role, organization, email, phone number, and physical address.
- Nomination statement (1,000 word limit): The nomination statement should express why you feel this candidate is deserving of the Roux Prize. The strongest nominations will be those which:
- Describe the scope and relevance of the problem addressed by the nominee.
- Describe how the candidate used evidence to improve population health. Please include specific examples that highlight the importance of the evidence for achieving the outcome, and highlight the breadth and significance of the impact on the population.
- Describe the nominee and the context in which they performed their work, including any barriers or obstacles they had to overcome to achieve the outcome.
- Describe any innovations the nominee implemented in their use of evidence.
- Describe how the prize would benefit the nominee.
- Optional: Supporting materials. You may provide any documents which provide evidence of the nominee’s achievements and in particular highlight how the nominee used evidence to improve population health and/or the magnitude and relevance of the impact of the nominee’s work. These could include peer-reviewed articles, media publications, letters of support, etc. (5 maximum).
- Nominator’s personal information: title, name, degrees, position or role, organization, email, phone number, and physical address.
- Optional: Co-nominator personal information: title, name, degrees, position or role, organization, email, phone number, and physical address.
The winner of the Roux Prize is selected in two rounds. First, the Roux Prize Nomination Committee – composed of distinguished individuals in population health research, policy, and practice – reviews all nominations and selects the finalists. Then, the finalists are reviewed and a winner is selected by the Roux Prize Nomination Board.
Nominations are welcomed from across the globe. Preference is given to individuals, but groups are eligible. Self-nominations are discouraged. Current full-time faculty, fellows, or employees of IHME and the University of Washington are not eligible.
- Upon notification, the award must be accepted by the recipient within a term decided by IHME, and be received by the recipient at the Roux Prize Awards Ceremony in the year of nomination.
- The prize is valued at $100,000 USD and is for the personal use of the recipients. An award citation and a medal will also be presented.
- If a group, rather than an individual, receives the award, the prize will be evenly divided among them. Each will receive an award citation and medal.
- Awards are made to residents of any country without restriction of gender, race, religion, creed, or nationality.
- All selections are final and are not subject to review or challenge.
- The winner will be announced prior to the award ceremony in the year of nomination.
The $100,000 Roux Prize is awarded annually by the nomination process described above.
About the Roux Prize
David and Barbara Roux established the $100,000 Roux Prize in 2013 to reward innovation in the application of disease burden research. The prize recognizes the person who has used health evidence in bold ways to make people healthier – and to highlight just what’s possible when visionaries use health evidence to change lives.
Mr. Roux is a founding board member of IHME and, during its initial decade, he championed IHME’s most ambitious project, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD). He encouraged IHME, as the coordinating center for the diverse array of GBD Collaborators, from policymakers to researchers, practitioners to academics, to find ways to make the information more accessible and useful, so that it could have the greatest possible impact on the ground. The Roux Prize seeks to champion those who use GBD to make an impact.
The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) enterprise dates back to 1993, with the publication of the World Bank’s World Development Report, and, since that time, GBD data have been used in a wide variety of ways to inform better policymaking at the local and international levels. Mr. Roux wanted to reward that kind of evidence-based innovation and to encourage even bolder attempts to improve population health through better measurement of disease burden.
David and Barbara Roux, founders of the Roux Prize.
Committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion
The Roux Prize and IHME confirm their strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Roux Prize tries to promote the recognition and engagement of individuals of diverse backgrounds and abilities and embraces diverse perspectives in their application of the field of population health and science.
We encourage the submission of competitive nominations of members of groups typically underrepresented in scientific awards and within the population health community at large. Please help us to further this mission by submitting nominations of outstanding contributors of diverse backgrounds for the Roux Prize.
Contact us
If you have a question about the prize, please contact [email protected].
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].