David Contreras-Loya, PhD
Research Professor
Escuela de Gobierno y Transformación Pública
Institute for Obesity Research
Tecnológico de Monterrey
E-mail: d.contreras [at] tec.mx
TECprofileI’m an applied economist, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of health, education, and social policy. Currently a Research Professor at Escuela de Gobierno y Transformación Pública and affiliated with the Institute for Obesity Research, I co-lead Evidencia y Acción para la Equidad en Salud, EVIS, a research center that translates empirical analysis into operational guidance for public sector decision-makers in Latin America.
My research examines how social and territorial conditions shape health and human capital outcomes, and how policy can be designed to improve effectiveness and equity under real-world constraints—limited data, heterogeneous implementation capacity, institutional fragmentation. Core themes include empirical evaluation of public programs, chronic disease prevention and management, health system performance, and distributional outcomes across places and populations. Work has appeared in the International Journal for Equity in Health, Health Policy and Planning, Social Science and Medicine, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, alongside policy-facing formats including technical reports, evaluation briefs, and stakeholder presentations. Research has been supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning, and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, and featured by VoxDev and Mexico Business News.
I collaborate with government counterparts, multilateral organizations, and civil society partners to strengthen data use and evaluation practice in programs related to cancer and diabetes care, digital health, and childhood violence. Recent projects include African Health Markets for Equity and Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development, or the Global Health Research Group on Violence Against Women and Violence Against Children. I regularly advise local government teams on measurement strategy, identification, and communicating uncertainty for accountable decision-making.
At Tec de Monterrey, I teach Quantitative Methods for Public Policy and Causal Inference at the graduate level, emphasizing statistical reasoning, uncertainty, and evidence communication for policy settings.
Previously, I worked as a consultant for the World Bank Group and collaborated with academic and policy teams across Mexico, the United States, Africa, and Latin America. I hold a Ph.D. in Health Policy from UC Berkeley, an MSc in Health Economics from Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, and a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey.