Praxis Center For Policy Studies
Chairman of the Executive Board
Health Policy
programme director
Ain Aaviksoo is the Head of Health Policy Programme at PRAXIS since September 2005 and CEO of the organisation since June 2006. He obtained medical degree from the University of Tartu, Estonia (1999). Dr Aaviksoo did his Master of Public Health degree on quantitative methods and decision analysis at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA (2005). Since 2008 he is a PhD candidate in Tallinn University of Technology focusing on medical informatics.
Dr Aaviksoo has worked as a physician in 1999-2001, after which he moved to the Ministry of Social Affairs where he held the position of the Head of Public Health Department in 2001 – 2003. Ain Aaviksoo’s primary research interest lies in health system performance and e-health. Using his senior administrative experience he is also interested in public policy and governance. Dr Aaviksoo has been also active in several private initiatives: establishing first Estonian health information web-portal (2000) and independent professional medical journal Lege Artis (2001), also developing nation-wide e-booking application for healthcare providers (2005). Also, Ain participated in FP6 funded project “Europe for Patients” as project manager for PRAXIS.
Dr Aaviksoo is lecturing in the University of Tartu, Estonia both in the Institute of Public Health and in the Department of Public Administration. He has high-level experience in social policy development in Estonia as well in EU, combined with both national and international policy analysis skills. As an expert Ain Aaviksoo is actively participating in policy-development processes in Estonia and within EU.















