Susan Rifkin teaches Global Health Policy and Health Policy Analysis and Communication. After completing two degrees in Chinese studies in the United States, she went to Britain and taught at the University of Sussex. For the following 10 years she lived in Hong Kong and traveled throughout Asia working with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), helping them to establish community-based health programs and setting up a NGO network, Asian Community Health Action Network (ACHAN) becoming its first coordinator. She returned to the UK where she taught in Liverpool, London, and Holland and in 1989 went to Germany to help establish a new Masters Programme in Community Health and Health Management in Developing Countries at the University of Heidelberg. Returning to England in 1993 she has continued to teach and carryout research in the field of community participation and health policy. In 1999, she became co-director of the Tropical Institute for Community Health and Development in Kisumu Kenya, helping to establish a Masters Programme for African students.

She has been co-organizer of the study unit on Primary Health Care at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a study unit on Health Policy and Systems at the London School of Economics. She continues as a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. Dr. Rifkin has been a consultant for the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the European Union and UNICEF.

Her research interests are focused on community participation, empowerment, health policy and Primary Health Care. She has published widely in these fields. Most recently she has been working with the World Health Organization in Sudan teaching research design for the National Human Resources for Health Observatory.