Afleveringen
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What would it take to build a public health knowledge system that is more pluralistic, reflexive, and oriented toward action?
The Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative was created by the Healthier Futures Lab at Washington University in St. Louis Bursky School of Public Health, in partnership with the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The initiative convenes researchers, practitioners, policy leaders, institutional representatives, and community partners to explore how public health knowledge is produced, assessed, shared, and put into practice in ways that are rigorous, meaningful, timely, and impactful.
During the inaugural convening of this initiative, participants explored the values and incentives that drive research priorities, the institutional forces that shape whose knowledge is considered legitimate, the types of evidence that public health has long overlooked, the potential of communities to serve as genuine contributors to knowledge creation, and the disconnect between what research generates and what practitioners and communities actually need.
This episode introduces the Building Better Ways of Knowing summer mini-series by asking some of the convening guests to reflect on the convening and the knowledge production process in public health. Throughout the summer, guests from the inaugural convening will join Salma to delve deeper into the themes explored during the convening, their areas of expertise, and the interaction of their disciplines with the field of public health.
About the guests:
Guests responding to the question "What stood out to you from these two days of discussion and exchange?ââŻinclude, in order of appearance:âŻ
Alonzo Plough â Chief Science Officer and Vice President Research-Evaluation-Learning, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation⯠Merlin Chowkwanyun â Donald H. Gemson Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health⯠Rachel Sachs â Professor of Law and Co-Director of The Cordell Institute, WashU School of Law Whitney Robinson â Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University School of Medicine⯠John Ioannidis â Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University⯠Katherine Keyes â Professor of Epidemiology, Susan Lasker Brody Professor of Population Mental Health, and Vice Chair for Research, Columbia University Mailman School of Public HealthâŻGuests responding to the question âWhat do you think needs to happen to strengthen how we produce and use knowledge in population health?â include, in order of appearance:âŻ
Kumanan Rasanathan â Executive Director, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization Sara Bannoura â Co-Founder, Civic City⯠Darren Jackson â Founder, Civic City Paula Brakeman â Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine and Founding Director of the Center for Health Equity, University of California, San FranciscoâŻHost: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zach Linhares
Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri
Music: Helmut Schenker / Omnia from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/tracks/60e14d61-23ca-4899-9c56-9a9018634986/
The views and opinions expressed by the guests in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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When and how, if ever, can public health compromise individual autonomy to prioritize the populationâs health?
Professor Justin Bernstein joins Salma to discuss the different types of autonomy and liberty, from an ethical and philosophical perspective. By discussing Justin's papers on Covid-19 lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and soda taxes, they weigh when and how, if ever, individual autonomy can be restricted for the sake of the publicâs health. Salma and Justin also explore the prioritization of different values, including liberty, justice, and equity, the legitimacy of different framings designing in health policies. This episode will help you question if public health and autonomy are mutually exclusive concepts or if there are instances where they can exist at the same time.
About the guest:
Justin Bernstein is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at The University of Virginia. His research focuses on bioethics and political philosophy, especially in relation to collective action and public health. He is co-author of the Public Health Ethics entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this podcast include:
AI: Artificial IntelligenceSEP: Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance ProgramUseful resources:
Bernstein J. The case against libertarian arguments for compulsory vaccination. J Med Ethics. 2017;43(11):792-796. doi:1136/medethics-2016-103857Bernstein J, Jayaram A, Hutler B. Assessing the Liberty-Based Case Against Pandemic Lockdowns. ken. 2025;35(2):163-196. doi:1353/ken.2025.a987088Faden R, Bernstein J, Shebaya S. Public Health Ethics. In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/publichealth-ethics/Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editor: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri
Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Why should we all be concerned about sea-level rise and its health impacts today, despite it seeming like a problem of the future?
Dr. Kathryn Bowen and Dr. Jemilah Mahmood join Salma to discuss the recently launched Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health, and Justice. They argue that sea-level rise is neither just a coastal nor a future problem, but a present-day public health issue â one already causing increased salinity in agriculture, inundation of homes, loss of burial grounds, and rising rates of hypertension and adverse mental health in Pacific countries and other coastal communities. They dissect the fundamental injustice at the heart of the crisis: the populations bearing its heaviest burden have contributed the least to its causes.
They discuss the three core themes guiding the commission â justice, connection, and imagination â and explore what it will take to move from evidence to action, and what success could look like by 2030.
This episode will challenge you to see sea-level rise for what it already is: a health issue, a justice crisis, and an urgent call to act.
About the guests
Dr. Kathryn Bowen is Professor and Deputy Director of Melbourne Climate Futures and Professor of Climate, Environment and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the health impacts of climate change, advising governments and multilateral agencies across the Indo-Pacific region. Dr. Jemilah Mahmood is Executive Director of the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University Malaysia and an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, with a career spanning clinical medicine, humanitarian response, and international health leadership. Dr. Bowen is co-chair and Dr. Mahmood is commissioner of the Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health, and Justice.
Notes:
Acronyms used in the podcast include:
AR7 = IPCC Seventh Assessment Report;ICJ = International Court of Justice;IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;NDCs = Nationally Determined Contributions;PM = Prime Minister;UN = United Nations;WHO = World Health Organization.Useful resources:
Figueres C, Bowen K, Cha J, et al. Life at the waterâs edge: a Lancet Commission on sea-level rise, health, and justice. The Lancet. 2026;407(10537):1408-1409. doi:1016/S0140-6736(26)00257-6Host: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez ContrerasMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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What happens when the global health architecture built over 80 years is changed drastically in 16 months and what should replace it?
Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe is the Dr. Adolph & Margaret Berger Professor of Medicine and Population Health and the director of the Division of Health & Behavior in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. His research focuses on the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases among minority and low-income populations in the US and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Benjamin Mason Meier is Professor of Global Health Policy in the Department of Public Policy and the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on human rights frameworks in global health law.
Gbenga and Ben join Salma, right after WashU's Building for a New Era of Global Health convening, to trace how the post-war global health system was built, what it achieved, and the tensions it carried from the start: vertical, siloed, funding; neocolonial dynamics; the securitization of health; and a deficit-focused, donor-centric approach that left recipient countries with infrastructure they didn't control. They then turn to what has changed over the past yearâthe simultaneous withdrawal of U.S. funding across USAID, PEPFAR, and NIH, the exit from WHO, and the decline of European contributionsâand what that means for active programs on the ground, from HIV clinics in Lagos to safety-net health centers in Brooklyn.
The conversation then moves to what comes next. Gbenga makes the case for reciprocal innovation drawing on his own work adapting task-shifting strategies between Ghana, Brooklyn, and Nigeria. Ben argues for the enduring power of global normative standards and human rights frameworks to guide health policy even when funding disappears. Both push for a shift in how the field communicates and for governments in the Global South to increase domestic health financing rather than wait for donor systems to return.
This episode offers a clear-eyed history of global health as we know it, an honest account of the crisis it faces, and reason for hope about what comes next.
Useful resources:
WashU School of Public Health. Building for a New Era of Global Health. 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mLohUgBu9UHost: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri
Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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How do public health institutions experiencing declining public trust go about becoming trustworthy again?
Erin O'Malley is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Trust in Health and Science, a coalition of more than 90 organizations working to enhance public trust in health and science. With nearly two decades of experience in health policy, advocacy, and cross-sectoral partnership, Erin leads an organization grappling daily with one of public health's most pressing and contemporary questions.
Erin joins Salma to discuss trends in trust in health and science in the United Statesâfrom the lasting impact of the Covid pandemic to the role of political polarization in eroding institutional trustworthinessâand what it actually takes to rebuild it. They discuss what the coalition has learned about the mechanics of trust-building across the health and science ecosystem, why community-level listening and interpersonal communication matter as much as institutional messaging, and how the language we use can impact public engagement and trustworthiness.
This episode will challenge how we talk about and classify information, explore the difference between being trusted and being trustworthy, and offer practical frameworks for how individuals, practitioners, and organizations can navigate an increasingly complex information landscape.
Useful resources:
Resources: Knowledge. Coalition for Trust in Health and Science. https://trustinhealthandscience.org/resources/category/knowledge/Host: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez ContrerasMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Americans die each year who would still be alive if the United States had the mortality rates of other wealthy countries. What makes this even more unsettling is that it wasn't always this way. In the mid-twentieth century, Americans actually lived longer than their counterparts in other rich nations. Something changed, and it's been getting worse for over four decades.
Dr. Andrew Stokes is an associate professor of global health at the Boston University School of Public Health. A demographer and sociologist by training, he founded the Uncounted Lab, a research initiative focused on mortality that official statistics miss, whether from pandemics, chronic diseases, or public health emergencies.
Dr. Stokes joins Salma to discuss what excess mortality reveals about who is dying in America and why. The conversation is anchored in the "Missing Americans" concept, which estimates how many US deaths each year would have been averted if the country simply matched the mortality rates of its peers. They trace why the US mortality disadvantage has grown steadily since the early 1980s, how the Covid-19 pandemic both exposed and deepened it, and why the burden has fallen disproportionately on Americans without a college degree, driven less by the "deaths of despair" narrative that dominates headlines and more by cardiovascular diseases. The conversation closes with GLP-1 drugs and the need to celebrate progress while still looking for structural interventions to prevent and mitigate the impact of obesity in the US.
This episode offers a new lens for analyzing preventable mortality in the United States and for thinking through what it can take to address it.
Useful resources:
Bor J, Raquib RV, Wrigley-Field E, Woolhandler S, Himmelstein DU, Stokes AC. Excess US Deaths Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Health Forum. 2025;6(5):e251118. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.1118 Bor J, Stokes AC, Raifman J, et al. Missing Americans: Early death in the United Statesâ1933â2021. Galea S, ed. PNAS Nexus. 2023;2(6):pgad173. doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad173 Paglino E, Wrigley-Field E, Stokes AC. Diverging Mortality Trends by Educational Attainment in the US. JAMA Health Forum. 2025;6(6):e251647. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.1647 Stokes AC. Public health should embrace GLP-1 drugs without abandoning obesity prevention. STAT. November 28, 2025. https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/28/weight-loss-drugs-obesity-prevention-importance/Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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This is a Purple Public Health Project episode.
Dr. Itai Bavli is a Research Associate and lecturer at the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia, as well as the author of the Substack When Public Health Goes Wrong. His research focuses on developing a framework for understanding public health decisions and actions that have gone wrong and caused harm, with particular attention to how these errors intersect with social inequalities, medical racism, and the ties between governments and the pharmaceutical industry.
In this Purple Public Health conversation, Dr. Bavli joins Salma to discuss public health errors, which are different from medical errors but can also result in harms to the population. By exploring a wide array of examplesâincluding the approval of Oxycontin in the US and Canadaâthey discuss the difference between errors of commission and errors of omission and highlight the importance of having conversations about these errors within the field. They also discuss the importance of identifying the errors versus assigning blame, the role that polarization has played in prioritizing some errors over others, the key role that transparency about errors can have on trust, and explore when has enough time passed to determine if an error has been made.
This episode will invite you to think beyond ideological, partisan, and professional lines, to understand, identify, and confront public health errors to improve the health of all.
Useful resources:
Bavli, Itai. When Public Health Goes Wrong. Substack, accessed March 19, 2026. https://itaibavli.substack.com/Bavli I. When Public Health Goes Wrong: Toward a New Concept of Public Health Error. J Law Med Ethics. 2023;51(2):385-402. doi:10.1017/jme.2023.67Host: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez ContrerasMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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Why does the US spend more on healthcare than other high-income countries and still have lower life expectancy?
Dr. Jose Francisco Figueroa is an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing Internist and Associate Physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research focuses on the drivers of healthcare spending and clinical outcomes and whether reforms aimed at improving healthcare quality and costs lead to better population health outcomes.
In this episode, Dr. Figueroa walks through three of his papers to build a case that is more nuanced than it first appears. The US healthcare system, it turns out, performs reasonably well on the things it controlsâscreening, diagnosis, chronic disease management. The problem lies outside the system: roughly 70% of the increase in avoidable deaths in the US is driven by drug use, alcohol, suicide, homicide, and traffic accidents, which are causes that clinical care cannot fix. Meanwhile, public health policies that could address those causesâsuch as regulations, taxes on harmful products, firearm lawsâlag well behind peer countries. Also, a major policy lever of the past two decades, value-based payment reform, hasnât moved the needle, in part because it was designed to change what happens inside the system rather than what drives people to die prematurely outside of it.
This episode will give you insights about why improving healthcare alone will not close the gap the US is currently facing. It makes the case for stronger public health infrastructure targeting the root causes of premature death.
Useful resources:
Figueroa JF, Duggan CE, Joynt Maddox KE. Value-Based Payment in Medicare: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 2025;50(6):1059-1079. doi:1215/03616878-11995200Papanicolas I, Niksch M, Figueroa JF. Avoidable Mortality Across US States and High-Income Countries. JAMA Intern Med. 2025;185(5):583. doi:1001/jamainternmed.2025.0155Papanicolas I, Sawaya T, Bleich SN, Figueroa JF. Comparing US prevention efforts to other high-income countries. The Lancet Public Health. 2025;10(11):e988-e1000. doi:1016/S2468-2667(25)00222-1Host: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez ContrerasMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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This is a revisit of an episode originally published in September 2025.
How can we capture complex social phenomena impacting health in research?
Dr. Maria Glymour, Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, has focused her research on the social factors influencing dementia and cognitive function in old age.
Salma and Maria analyze the dementia research landscape and discuss the key elements of the research process to capture complex social phenomena affecting health outcomes. From asking the right questions, to identifying appropriate methods and data, thinking about who the evidence will be useful for, and understanding the potential influences of funders, the conversation explores how research can help change policies. Maria breaks down the differences between causal inference, descriptive research, and associational research, using examples from her own work. She illustrates how these methodological distinctions depend on the questions that want to be answered and the intended audience.
Maria also reflects on some of the main questions for PhD applicants to ask themselves and emphasizes the need for applicants to highlight the specific passions that make their applications unique. As she puts it: âHow much of your essay do you think anyone else could write?â
Listen to discover how you can apply these principles to your own work and make a meaningful impact in health scholarship, regardless of the step you are at in your career.
Useful resources:
Berkman, Lisa F., Ichiro Kawachi, and M. Maria Glymour (eds), Social Epidemiology, 2 edn (New York, 2014; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Mar. 2015), https://doi.org/10.1093/med/978019537.... Glymour, M. What to look for in an epidemiology PhD program: 1. top priorities. LinkedIn. Published October 12, 2017. Accessed August 28, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-l...Glymour, M. What to look for in an epidemiology PhD program: 2. Epi in a Medical School or a School of Public Health? LinkedIn. Published October 20, 2017. Accessed August 28, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-l...Glymour, M. What to look for in a PhD program: 3. Will an interdisciplinary program make you an intellectual leader or an isolated dilettante? LinkedIn. Published November 11, 2017. Accessed August 28, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-l...Glymour, M. Epidemiology and why I love it: some advice for people considering graduate school. LinkedIn. Published August 5, 2018. Accessed August 28, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/epidem...Glymour, M. Public Health Graduate Programs: What To Look For. Published October 9, 2023. Accessed August 28, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/public...Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary LinharesMarketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2... The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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How can we support people age safely and with dignity in their own homes?
Dr. Susy Stark, is a Professor at the Washington University in St Louis School of Public Health. As an occupational therapist and community-based researcher, her work focuses on helping adults with chronic conditions and functional decline age successfully in place by using tailored environmental support and self-management strategies to prevent falls.
In this episode, Dr. Stark joins Salma to speak about the overlooked role of the home environment in shaping health outcomes for older adults. Drawing on decades of clinical experience and research, Susy explains why falls are not inevitable consequences of aging, but largely preventable events shaped by the interaction between bodies, environments, and behavior. The conversation unpacks the demographic shift from an aging âpyramidâ to an aging âcolumn,â the misalignment between how homes are built and how people age, and why nearly half of all falls occur inside the home.
At the center of the discussion is the Home Hazard Removal Program (HARP), an evidence-based intervention that pairs individualized home assessments with shared decision-making and hands-on implementation. Susy describes how modest environmental changes like improved lighting, handrails, and non-slip surfaces, can reduce fall rates by 38% while generating a positive return on investment for the health system.
Beyond intervention design, the episode explores why community-based care remains underfunded in the U.S., what it takes to translate evidence into policy, and why aging should be understood not as a niche issue, but as a collective future we are all moving toward and must all help address comprehensively.
A conversation about prevention, autonomy, and why supporting older adults is not just compassionate, it is essential for the sustainability of our health systems.
Useful resources:
Stark S, Keglovits M, Somerville E, et al. Home Hazard Removal to Reduce Falls Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(8):e2122044. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.22044Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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How does research actually shape policy and when is evidence "good enough" to act on?
In this episode, Salma Abdalla is joined by Dr Kathryn Backholer, Professor of Public Health Policy and co-director of the Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) at Deakin University in Australia. Kathrynâs work focuses on building evidence that decision-makers can use, starting with policy problems that need solving and working backward to generate the right kind of data.
The conversation explores what it takes for research to move from journals into real policy action. Drawing on Kathrynâs work monitoring how gambling, alcohol, and junk food companies target young people online, they examine the tension between rigor and timeliness, the role of well-timed pilot studies, and why waiting for âperfectâ evidence can sometimes mean missing critical policy windows.
The episode is anchored in a live policy moment: Australiaâs recent decision to delay social media access for people under 16. Kathryn discusses how evidence informed this world-first policy, what it can â and cannot â address, and how her team is now evaluating its effectiveness and unintended consequences.
This episode is a candid look at the research-to-policy pipeline, the trade-offs involved in population-level decision-making, and what public health researchers can learn about designing work that is both rigorous and consequential.
Useful resources:
Livingstone H. Australia has banned social media for kids under 16. How does it work? BBC News. January 22, 2026. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyoBackholer K, Pathirana NL. #DigitalYouth. Deakin University; 2024. https://iht.deakin.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/2024/06/Digital-Youth-brief-Final-2.pdfHost: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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Does public health belong to people with a specific perspective, or is itâas the term impliesâfor the public at large?
Todayâs episode is different. Dean Sandro Galea, Dean and Distinguished Professor at WashU School of Public Health, returns to the podcast to discuss the Purple Public Health Project (PPHP), a new initiative he is launching with Salma. The PPHP aims to start a conversation about how public health thinks, acts, and communicates so we can reach people of all stripes, ideologies, and perspectives. Using concrete examples, they discuss whether public health should be grounded in science or values, or both. They also explore what each one of them thinks success would look like.
Join Salma and Dean Galea as they commit to this process of thinking rigorously in public about public health and contribute to shifting the thinking of the field.
Useful resources:
Abdalla S, Galea S. Introducing the Purple Public Health Project. Complicating the Narrative. January 24, 2026. https://salmaabdalla.substack.com/p/introducing-the-purple-public-healthHealthier Futures Lab. www.healthierfutureslab.orgHost: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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In global health, evidence, authority, and distance are often deeply entangled.
Dr. Seye Abimbola is Professor of Health Systems at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney. He is a leading voice in debates on decolonizing global health, with scholarship focused on health systems governance and epistemic injustice. He is also the founding editor-in-chief of BMJ Global Health and the author of The Foreign Gaze (2024).
In this episode, Seye joins Salma to discuss his collection of essays interrogating the epistemological foundations of the field currently known as global healthâand to reflect on what it might mean to reshape that field. Together, they examine who gets to define global health problems and solutions, noting how the field is often shaped by distant, powerful actors rather than those closest to the contexts in which interventions are meant to work.
They also explore how knowledge is generated and valued in global health, questioning the routine elevation of randomized controlled trials as the gold standard for complex social interventions, unpacking why author affiliations can obscure deeper issues of âgazeâ versus âpose,â and discussing how local practices are frequently overlooked or rendered illegible as evidence.
Throughout the episode, Seye and Salma invite listeners to reflect on positionality, take complexity seriously, and imagine what the âfield formerly known as global healthâ could become.
Useful resources:
Abimbola S. The Foreign Gaze: Essays on Global Health. IRD Ă©ditions; 2024. Abimbola, S. (2011). Seye Abimbola: David Cameron, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The BMJ Opinion. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2011/12/08/seye-abimbola-david-cameron-homosexuality-and-hivaids-in-sub-saharan-africa/ Abimbola, S. (2019). The foreign gaze: Authorship in academic global health. BMJ Global Health, 4(5), e002068. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-002068Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editor: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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Will superbugs take over the world, as increasing media articles suggest?
Dr. Sabiha Essack is Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), where she established the Antimicrobial Research Unit, and the South African Research Chair in Antibiotic Resistance and One Health. Dr. Essackâs research focuses on evidence-informed strategies to mitigate antibiotic resistance through prevention and surveillance strategy using a One Health approach, which accounts for the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment.
In this episode, Sabiha joins Salma to discuss antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its unequal impact on health. While AMR is driven by indiscriminate use and misuse of antimicrobials globally, low- and middle-income countriesâwith weak health and regulatory systems, limited access to diagnostic tools and alternative solutions, and vulnerable populationsâbear most of the burden. Dr. Essack highlights the importance of equitable access to antibiotics, diagnostics, and vaccines, as well as the critical role of governance, financing, stewardship, and environmental controls. They also analyze current AMR communication approaches and question whether fear-based messages are effective and appropriate.
Considering the global and polycentric scope of this issue, with no single right answer, this episode underscores the need for innovative, equitable alternatives to address the growing AMR challenge.
Useful resources:
Altevogt BM, Taylor P, Akwar HT, et al. A One Health framework for global and local stewardship across the antimicrobial lifecycle. Commun Med. 2025;5(1):414. doi:10.1038/s43856-025-01090-4Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary Linhares Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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When tribunals like the International Criminal Court prosecutes gender-based violence in conflict, what evidence do they need? And who gathers it?
Kim Thuy Seelinger is a Professor of Practice at Washington University School of Public Health and former senior coordinator for Gender-Based Crimes at the International Criminal Court in the Hague until the Spring of 2025. For over two decades, she's worked at the intersection of international criminal law and public health.
In this episode, Kim and Salma explore how gender-based violence manifests in conflictânot just sexual violence, but forced starvation, attacks on healthcare, reproductive coercion, and denial of education. They examine how international law distinguishes between war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and why proving these crimes remains so difficult, especially when prosecuting high-level perpetrators.
The conversation tackles a fundamental question: How can public health methods strengthen international justice? Kim explains how epidemiological data, trauma-informed approaches, and understanding of health systems can help document crimes at scale, establish patterns of violence, and ensure reparations address survivors' long-term needs. But she's also honest about the tensionsâbetween prevention and punishment, between individual accountability and systemic change, and between what the law promises and what survivors actually experience.
This is a conversation about breaking down silos between fields that urgently need each other and confronting the gap between justice on paper and justice in practice.
Useful resources:
Seelinger KT. Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict- Theories, myths, and holistic response. Presented at: Public Health Speaker Series; February 25, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4B7s2pEPMQSeelinger KT. Substance, Systems, Survivors: The essential synergy of public health and international justice. Presented at: Talking Public Health seminar series; April 25, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BU1iSV68xUCenter for Human Rights, Gender & Migration, Mukwege Foundation. Understanding Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ethiopia; 2022. https://www.mukwegefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ETH_CRSV-in-ETH-Report_221012_FINAL.pdfHost: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary LinharesMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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What is global healthâand who gets to define it?
For decades, the field has claimed universality while being shaped largely by specific institutions, priorities, and assumptions. But what happens when we center the places where most global health âproblemsâ are identified? What does it mean to tell someone living in a Dhaka slum to shelter in place during a pandemic?
In this episode, Salma is joined by Dr. Sabina Faiz Rashid, Professor and Mushtaque Chowdhury Chair in Health and Poverty at the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health in Bangladesh; Director of the Center of Excellence for Gender, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights; and Honorary Professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. As a medical anthropologist whose career has been rooted in the alleys, kitchens, and courtyards of Dhakaâs urban slums, Dr. Rashid has spent decades challenging how we think about health, poverty, genderâand whose knowledge counts.
Together, they examine what global health often misses: the over-reliance on disease-focused indicators, the tendency to blame individuals for choices that are shaped by circumstance, and the habit of designing interventions far from the communities they attempt to serve. Drawing on vivid examples from Dr. Rashidâs ethnographic work, they explore how a motherâs health depends not only on symptoms or clinical markers, but on whether water runs for 20 minutes today, whether her husband finds work, and whether she has more than one egg to feed her children.
The conversation moves from methodology to power. Salma and Sabina discuss why qualitative and quantitative approaches both matterâand why neither is meaningful without genuine community partnership. They also consider the limitations of current âdecolonizationâ conversations, suggesting that simple binaries obscure the complex power dynamics that exist both between and within countries.
This episode is an invitation to rethink global health from the ground upâits assumptions, its methods, its politics, and its future. Itâs a conversation for anyone who believes public health must reflect the lived realities of the people it aims to serve.
Useful resources:
- "Sabina F Rashid, PhD." BRAC University, www.bracu.ac.bd/about/people/sabina-f-rashid-phd. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
- Rashid SF. Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows. Routledge; 2024.
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary Linhares Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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What do we mean when we say health is a human right? Dr. Benjamin Mason Meier is a Professor of Global Health Policy at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill who has focused his research on the development, evolution, and application of human rights-based approaches to health.
In this episode, Dr. Meier joins Salma to explore the foundations of health as a human rightâfrom its post-World War II origins to its development in international law. They discuss the obligations this framing creates for governments and international organizations, how rights must translate into tangible policies that improve health outcomes, and the tensions between advocacy and accountability. They also address the politics related to global health governance and human rights and consider what a human rights approach to health might look like in a future shaped by AI, climate change, and increased polarization.
Join this episode to learn about the difference between health as a human right as a slogan and health as a human right as a legal obligationâand why that distinction matters for global health's future.
Useful resources:
Forman L, De Mesquita JB, Filho LB, Meier BM, Sirleaf M. How Did Human Rights Fare in Amendments to the International Health Regulations? J Law Med Ethics. 2024;52(4):907-921. doi:10.1017/jme.2024.172 Gostin LO, Meier BM. Foundations of Global Health & Human Rights. Oxford University Press; 2020. Gostin LO, Meier BM, eds. Global Health Law and Policy: Ensuring Justice for a Healthier World. Oxford University Press; 2023. Robinson M. Human Rights in Global Health. Vol 1. (Mason Meier B, Gostin LO, eds.). Oxford University Press; 2018. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190672676.001.0001Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary Linhares Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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What can Reddit, Instagram, and other digital platforms tell us about population health? Dr. Yulin Hswen, associate professor at the University of California San Francisco and associate editor of JAMA and JAMA+ AI, is a computational epidemiologist using big data to understand population health in our increasingly digital world.
In this episode, Salma sits down with Dr. Hswen to explore what our digital environments can tell us about public health. From Reddit threads revealing untold health experiences to phone data mapping mobility patterns during disease outbreaks, Dr. Hswen challenges us to see social media platforms and online data not just as communication tools but as health environments that shapeâand sometimes distortâpopulation well-being.
Dr. Hswen shares how a personal healthcare experience first sparked her interest in digital data and reflects on what these traces can reveal about collective behavior, equity, and trust. The conversation dives into the ethics of digital and AI researchâissues of privacy, representation, and accountabilityâand unpacks her proposal of âvirtuosityâ as the sixth V of big data. Dr. Hswen also discusses her work on ethical guidelines for AI using in public health and clinical medicine and how she approaches her editorial work at JAMA and JAMA+ AI and what excites her about the future of computational epidemiology and the use of AI in clinical and public health research.
Whether you're a researcher considering how to incorporate digital methods and AI into your work or simply curious about what your online activity reveals about population-level health patterns, this episode offers essential perspectives.
Useful resources:
Hswen Y, Naslund JA, Hurley M, Ragon B, Handley MA, Fang F, et al. AI-Y: An AI Checklist for Population Ethics Across the Global Context. Curr Epidemiol Rep. 2025;12(1):13. doi:10.1007/s40471-025-00362-w Kosmyna N, Hauptmann E, Yuan YT, Situ J, Liao XH, Beresnitzky AV, et al. Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. arXiv. Preprint posted online June 10, 2025. doi:https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872 Roose K. Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html. February 23, 2019. Science & technology. Will AI make you stupid? The Economist. Published online July 16, 2025. https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/07/16/will-ai-make-you-stupid Wesson P, Hswen Y, Valdes G, Stojanovski K, Handley MA. Risks and Opportunities to Ensure Equity in the Application of Big Data Research in Public Health. Annu Rev Public Health. 2022;43(1):59-78. doi:10.1146/annurev-publhealth-051920-110928 JAMA+ AI Conversations. https://jamanetwork.com/channels/ai/pages/podcastHost: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary Linhares Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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What if we could build our world from scratchâwith health, justice, and thriving communities at its core?
In his new book Imagine Doing Better: Why Policies Backfire and How Prevention Thinking Can Change Everything, Dr. Paul J. Fleming, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan, argues that preventionâand imaginationâshould guide how we shape the future.
In this conversation, Salma and Paul explore what our great-great-great-great-grandchildren might say about the choices weâre making today, and how we can reimagine the systems that define our livesâfrom healthcare and education to the environment, justice, and public safety. Together, they discuss how prevention thinking moves beyond treating problems after they arise to transforming the structures that create them in the first place.
They also grapple with deeper questions: Are current reforms truly changing the systems that cause harmâor simply reinforcing them? Who gets to shape the conversation about the policies and practices that define a better tomorrow? And how do we sustain hope in generational work that, like a relay race, depends on each generation taking concrete steps and handing the baton forward from a stronger starting point?
Useful resources:
Fleming PJ. Imagine Doing Better Why Policies Backfire and How Prevention Thinking Can Change Everything. Johns Hopkins University Press; 2025.Fleming PJ. Making a Better World Possible. https://pjfleming.com/newsletterHost: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary LinharesMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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The techniques that make health messages more effectiveâpersonalization, customization, targeted deliveryâare the same tools driving the spread of inaccurate health claims at scale. Dr. Matthew Kreuter, WashUâs Kahn Family Professor of Public Health and founding director of the Health Communication Research Laboratory, is an expert on effective and equity-oriented health communications and has been thinking about these issues for decades.
In this episode, Salma and Dr. Kreuter trace the evolution from pamphlet racks to algorithm feeds. They discuss why well-intentioned public health messaging can backfire and highlight the importance of listening. They explore why certain terms have become counterproductive, the costs of communicating false certainty, and why public health canât message its way out of complex problems.
Tune in for a candid discussion about the double-edged nature of communication in the algorithm age, and why the future of health communication may depend less on what we say than on how well we listen.
Useful resources:
Kreuter MW, Farrell DW, Olevitch LR, Brennan LK. Tailoring Health Messages. 0 ed. Routledge; 2013. doi:4324/9781315045382Johnson KJ, Weng O, Kinzer H, et al. iHeard STL: Development and first year findings from a local surveillance and rapid response system for addressing COVID-19 and other health misinformation. Dinga JN, ed. PLoS ONE. 2023;18(11):e0293288. doi:1371/journal.pone.0293288Schneider T. Rich trove of data on social needs waits to be tapped. WashU Public Health. August 12, 2025. https://schoolofpublichealth.washu.edu/rich-trove-of-data-on-social-needs-waits-to-be-tapped/Health Communication Research Laboratory. iHeard St. Louis. https://stl.iheard.orgHealth Communication Research Laboratory. 211 counts. https://211counts.org/home/indexWilliams D. What is misinformation, anyway? Conspicuous Cognition. December 1, 2024. https://substack.com/@conspicuouscognition/p-151889774Host: Dr. Salma AbdallaEditors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary LinharesMarketing: Kinkini BhaduriMusic: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/
The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
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