Diana Sarfati

Diana Sarfati (born 1967/1968) is a New Zealand cancer researcher and senior public servant. She was formerly head of the Cancer Control Agency from 2019 to 2022 and Director-General of Health from 2022 to 2025.

Education and family Sarfati attended medical school at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1991. Later, she returned to Otago for postgraduate education, earning a Master of Public Health (with Distinction) in 1998. Her PhD, completed in 2014 at the same university, found that administrative data were adequate for measuring comorbidity in cancer populations and was determined to be an exceptional thesis.

Safarti's father, John Sarfati, was also a medical doctor. She has three children.

Career

Medicine and academia Early in her career, Sarfati worked on a cancer ward in Palmerston North.

In 2015, she was appointed co-head of the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, alongside Richard Edwards, and was also appointed a professor. From 2018 she became the department's sole head. IARC's international expert group on social inequalities in cancer, the Board of the International Cancer Benchmarking Project, and she led a Lancet Oncology series on cancer in small island developing states. She is a former member of the National Cancer Programme Leadership Board, the National Screening Advisory Group, the National Ethics Advisory Committee, the Bowel Cancer Taskforce and the National Bowel Cancer Screening Advisory Committee.

Public administration In 2019, Sarfati was seconded to the Ministry of Health as National Director of Cancer Control. The Government established a new Cancer Control Agency and she was named the agency's interim chief executive on 1 December 2019. She was permanently appointed to that role on 1 July 2020. During her period leading the agency, it reported on the state of cancer in New Zealand, the impact of COVID-19 on cancer services, cancer prevention, and the gap in cancer medicine availability between Australia and New Zealand. She also sat on Health New Zealand's Planned Care Taskforce.

Sarfati was appointed acting Director-General of Health in July 2022, succeeding Ashley Bloomfield, who had led the Ministry of Health through the COVID-19 pandemic. She was named the permanent appointment to that role in November 2022. She announced her resignation from the position in February 2025.

Recognition In 2019, Sarfati was named NEXT 's Woman of the Year for her focus on promoting equitable cancer treatment.

Selected works