Educated in history and political science at the Universities of Melbourne and Cambridge, James Gillespie has published widely on Australian and global health policy. He is the author (with Anne-marie Boxall) of Making Medicare: the Politics of Universal Health Care in Australia (NewSouth Books 2013) and The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics (University of Cambridge Press 1991/2000). His is Associate Professor in Health Policy at the Sydney School of Public Health and was one of the founders of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, currently deputy director.
His research has focused on the problems created for health systems by the changing burden of chronic illness. He is currently a Chief Investigator on an NHMRC project grant, looking at better ways of connecting hospital and community health care for people living with chronic illness in Western Sydney. He is on the Steering Committee of Western Sydney Partners in Recovery, a mental health program bringing together WentWest, the Western Sydney Medicare Local, and six non-government provers of mental health services in the region.
He has also published onextensively on ways of improving the relationship between public health research and policy makers.
He was founding director of the Master of Health Policy program in the Sydney School of Public Health