Charles Normand is Professor of the Economics of Palliative Care and Rehabilitation at the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s College London, and Professor Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin He is a member of the Irish Health Research Board and the Board of St James’s Hospital.

His main current research interests are on health care finance and the economics of ageing and palliative and end of life care.   He was a founding co-investigator on the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and has worked on a range of studies on economic and health economic aspects of ageing in Ireland. His is involved in ongoing studies on how palliative care interventions affect outcomes and costs, and on three European Commission funded randomised trials of palliative care interventions.

He has collaborated for many years with WHO and with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and is currently co-leading a programme of work on population ageing and the impact on health and social care. He recently co-authored the Observatory’s policy brief on end of life care and the policy brief on ageing and health care finance for the Western Pacific Regional Office.  He also has an ongoing collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, looking particularly at how care delivery can be made more efficient.

Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, WHO Regional Office for Europe.

Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat is a medical doctor, a specialist in public health, and the author of several publications in public health and European health policy.
Following her qualification as a medical doctor from the University of Malta in 1995, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat worked in various areas in the health sector in Malta, including maternal and child health, mental health, and primary care. Her transdisciplinary research bridging health policy, European studies and small states studies led to her PhD entitled “The Europeanisation of health systems: a small state perspective”.

Since 1999, Natasha has been a resident academic at the University of Malta, teaching in the department of health services management and public health. In 2003, she completed her specialization in public health medicine and obtained her membership in the Faculty of Public Health of the United Kingdom. Between 2001 and 2013, she occupied various senior positions in the Ministry of Health in Malta, including that of Chief Medical Officer.

Before joining WHO, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat served as President of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) from 2016 to 2020, where she was actively involved in health advocacy at the European level.

Dr Azzopardi-Muscat is married to Dr Conrad Azzopardi, a practicing physician, and has 3 children.