Dr Rajaratnam Abel is a Consultant Public Health Physician, following his retirement in 2005 as Head of of RUHSA Department Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
He completed his medical education from Christian Medical College, Vellore, Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, and his PhD from Chennai, India.
He worked as a staff physician in a number of Christian mission hospitals in Nepal and different states of India, before moving over to RUHSA for a lifetime work of 27 years.
In RUHSA, he was initially responsible for a Primary Health Care program covering a population of around 120,000 people in 40 panchayats of Vellore District. Along with this he was responsible for a 60 bed Secondary Health Care program.
Subsequently he was the Head of the Department, with additional responsibility of covering development in areas of livestock, agriculture, vocational training of youth and Self Help Groups of women. All these were focused on poverty reduction among the poorest of the poor.
He was also responsible for a vibrant training programme with participants coming from different parts of India as well as some international students from select countries.
Inter-disciplinary and inter-department research was carried out, with 7 candidates completing their PhD, besides many other research that contributed to influencing policy. He has participated as an author in over 70 scientific articles.
During his retirement, he works as a consultant to a leading Indian NGO/CSO, the DHAN Foundation, helping in introducing health into micro finance.
He is also involved as a guest professor conducting online teaching of principles of health and environment to MBA students of BITS Pilani in partnership with CMC Vellore and health students of DHAN Foundation .
He has started sharing his experiences of a lifetime reducing poverty through publishing books. Three books have come out of his hands, with many more in the pipeline. His list of books with the links is available in the .page on books published in this website.
His Alma Mater Hopkins awarded life membership of the Delta Omega Honor Society. For his work in nutrition, he was awarded the Fellowship of the International College of Nutrition.
He is settled in Chennai along with his wife. His daughter, son in-law and grandson live in Hong Kong and his son with his wife and three children live in Chennai, India.
Rajaratnam Abel 