Mireia Diaz holds a bachelor’s degree in Statistics (Autonomous University of Barcelona-UAB, 1994), a Master’s degree in Statistical Science and Techniques (Polytechnic University of Catalonia-UPC, 2005), a Master in Public Health (Autonomous University of Barcelona-UAB, 2009) and a PhD in Public Health and Biomedical Research Methodology (Autonomous University of Barcelona-UAB, 2015).

In 1994 she joined the Cancer Epidemiology Research Program (PREC) in the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) as statistician, and was involved in several analyses of environmental risk factors and multinational case-control studies conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

In 2006 she was awarded a Global HPV Vaccine Policy Model fellowship by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and moved to the Centre for Health Decision Science in Harvard University, where she worked on the cost-effectiveness of cervical cancer prevention strategies in developing countries. This two-year research work was the basis of her PhD project and, in collaboration with public health organizations such as GAVI, PATH or PAHO, contributed to the introduction of HPV vaccination programs in those countries.

Between 2009 and 2017 she became a Principal Investigator on several studies funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of HPV vaccination combined with cervical cancer screening in policy decision-making in Spain. As a result, in 2016 her publications were included in an official report from the Spanish Ministry of Health on the Efficiency and Sustainability of Cervical Cancer Screening in the National Health System. She also led a project on the evaluation of the impact of an organized cervical cancer screening program in Catalonia funded by the national prestigious fellowship Recercaixa.

Currently, she is a member of the UNIC-I team in PREC, and her work focuses on the economic evaluation of cancer prevention (Health Economics in Cancer Research group), mainly in cervical cancer but also in other cancers such as breast, lung, endometrial and ovarian, and anal cancers. She is also collaborating with the Catalan Health Department in the implementation of the organized HPV-based cervical cancer screening program in Catalonia.