Anandi Bhattacharya

Indian public health innovator revolutionizing rural healthcare through grassroots education programs.

Anandi Bhattacharya (b. 1978) is a Mumbai-based physician and founder of HealthRoots Foundation, an NGO transforming rural India’s healthcare access. Starting in 2005, she pioneered the 'Community Health Activist' (CHA) model training local women as primary healthcare providers. This initiative reduced maternal mortality rates by 40% in Maharashtra’s tribal regions, documented in the WHO’s 2015 Global Health Report. Her 2012 TEDx talk 'Why Village Women Make Better Doctors' went viral, securing $2 million in international grants.

Bhattacharya’s 2017 book Health Beyond Hospitals inspired similar programs in Bangladesh and Nepal. In 2020, her team developed the CoviHealth app, a low-bandwidth tool distributing pandemic information in 15 Indian languages. This earned her a Rolex Award for Enterprise and partnerships with UNICEF. Critics highlight her 2021 Lancet study proving CHAs outperform government clinics in chronic disease management. Bhattacharya’s work challenges global health paradigms by valuing indigenous knowledge over Western-centric solutions.