Sara Abiola is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy & Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Originally from Iowa, Sara graduated with distinction from Yale University with a BA in 2003 and from Harvard Law School with a JD in 2007. Prior to graduating from college, Sara participated in the Harvard Medical School Health Policy Summer Program and worked at the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Upon graduating from Yale, Sara began her studies at Harvard Law School, where she focused on the use of international human rights language to increase access to healthcare. Her dissertation examined the relationship between politics, public health law and health outcomes in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. She was previously a recipient of an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality traineeship and has received the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.

As an attorney and health policy researcher with extensive training in quantitative and qualitative research methods, she is most interested in studying the relationship between local, state, national, and international laws and population health in developed and developing countries. How do laws affect population health? Do legal interventions have the capacity to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations? Her most recent projects focus on health systems strengthening and reform in sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on developing and testing a theoretical framework that explains public perceptions of health services and access to basic medical care.