Eric A. Friedman, Senior Global Health Policy Advisor Physicians for Human Rights

Eric A. Friedman is based in the Washington, DC, office of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), working on policy and advocacy efforts for PHR’s Global Health Action Campaign, which is aimed at grounding global health policy in human rights.  Much of his recent work has been focused on seeking to increase the extent to which U.S. global health policy and programs incorporate the human right to health.  Another primary area of his work is the shortage of health workers globally, especially in Africa, and the need for a human rights-based response.  Friedman chairs the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative, an international health workforce advocacy coalition, and serves on the Board of the Global Health Workforce Alliance.  He co-authored The Right to Health and Health Workforce Planning: A Guide for Government Officials, NGOs, Health Workers and Development Partners (2008), and authored the PHR report An Action Plan to Prevent Brain Drain: Building Equitable Health Systems in Africa (2004).  Friedman joined PHR in September 2002, initially as a Bernstein Human Rights Fellow.  Friedman graduated from Yale Law School in June 2002.  For most of his time as a law student, Friedman was a member of the school’s human rights clinic, where he focused on human rights and HIV/AIDS.  He was also an editor of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal, in which he published an article on debt relief.  Friedman received his BA from Yale College in 1999.