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Professor Karen Hofman is Research Professor and Founding Director of the SAMRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science, known as PRICELESS SA, at the University of the Witwatersrand. A medical graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, she qualified as a paediatrician and previously served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University and as Director of Policy and Planning at the US National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center. Since 2009, she has led research at Wits focused on evaluating health interventions and policies both within and beyond the health system to maximise returns on investment for population health.
Professor Hofman has authored more than 190 peer-reviewed publications in global health. Her work centres on priority setting for health investments, child health, and the commercial determinants of health with particular attention to food and beverage policies. She received the Wits Vice Chancellor’s Social Impact Research Award in 2020 and the Science-for-Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2022. In 2025 she was awarded the Platinum Lifetime Achievement Award at the SAMRC Scientific Merit Awards in recognition of her contributions to raising the profile of South African science and advancing health research foundations.
Wits and UWC researchers spotlight Lancet evidence linking ultra-processed foods to child obesity, NCDs in South Africa. Stats, studies, solutions for healthier futures.
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