Dr. Desislava Ivanova Vankova

Dr Desislava Vankova is an Associate Professor in social medicine and healthcare organisation at the Medical University of Varna, Bulgaria. She is a university lecturer and an academic researcher with a focus on population health (health-related quality of life and wellbeing), health promotion, access to medicines and Integrative Medicine. She is a certified homeopath and a Schuessler salts educator. Her academic skills include proficiency in mixed-methods research, ethical evaluation of health interventions, scientific publications and reports writing, health policy analysis, health technology assessment of novel medicines, teaching, and scientific project management. She is lecturing social medicine and health promotion for medical, nursing students and other public health specialties. Dr Vankova has more than 25 years of experience in different levels and sites of the health care system - a unique opportunity to analyze health from different perspectives. In 2022 she defended the first academic DSc Thesis on integrative medicine in Bulgaria. Desislava Vankova published more than 150 papers, articles, book chapters, educational texbooks and monographs. Assoc. Prof. Vankova was the national expert for the „Study on the Barriers to Effective Development and Implementation of National Policies on Antimicrobial Resistance“, supported by the EC (2022-2023). Currently, she is a project leader of a national project “Integrative One Health approaches to AMR for better quality of life” and a Chair of the GIFTS-AMR working Group 6: “Increasing the accessibility of (information of) medicinal products for infections”.