Complicating The Narrative
- Episodes
- 42
- Released
- every two weeks
- Latest episode
- Nov 3, 2026
About the podcast
In this podcast, hosted by Dr. Salma Abdalla—Assistant Professor and Director of the Healthier Futures Lab at Washington University in St. Louis—we provide rigorous, evidence-based analysis of complex population health challenges. In a time of social, economic, and political upheaval—marked by eroding public trust, polarized narratives, and growing uncertainty—this podcast aims to challenge oversimplified narratives about the forces that shape the health of populations. Salma engages guests from across disciplines in rigorous, evidence-based conversations that challenge conventional wisdom. The conversations sometimes pose uncomfortable questions, seek nuanced perspectives, and question not just what we think, but how we arrive at our conclusions in public health. We explore the inherent complexities, real-world tradeoffs, and unintended consequences of public health interventions. Our goal is to empower listeners with nuanced understanding, helping them navigate these multifaceted issues in an informed and balanced way. The podcast is supported by the Washington University School of Public Health — https://schoolofpublichealth.washu.edu — and the Frick Initiative. Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Zachary Linhares Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/ Contact us at: [email protected]
Episodes 42
Is cash a health intervention? With Rita Hamad
Does income support improve health, and is there enough evidence to know which related policies to enact? Rita Hamad joins Salma to discuss her research on the effects of social policies—including income tax …
Show notes
Does income support improve health, and is there enough evidence to know which related policies to enact?
Rita Hamad joins Salma to discuss her research on the effects of social policies—including income tax credit, child tax credit, and paid family leave—on population health. They begin with the evidence on different forms of income support, highlighting that many policies have not run long enough or at scale to be evaluated, and showing, through Rita’s work on prenatal health, that the design and timing of income support shape its effects. They then explore what counts as sufficient evidence to settle a policy question, noting that policymakers should look at the whole body of evidence, as well as local values and politics, and consider health alongside other outcomes before enacting a policy, with evaluation built in from the start. Rita also stresses the importance of separating the presentation of evidence from advocacy for a specific policy. Finally, Rita and Salma discuss NIH’s stated plan to step back from funding policy research, the removal of the CDC’s PRAMS data on prenatal and postpartum health, and the tension over whether foundations should do work the federal government should be doing.
This episode invites you to reflect on what the effects of different policies are, what counts as sufficient evidence, and what else is needed to turn that evidence into policy.
About the guest:
Rita Hamad is Professor of Social Epidemiology and Public Policy and Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the pathways through which between social factors like poverty and education with racial and socioeconomic health disparities and understanding the effect of social and economic policies on health.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this episode include:
- AI = Artificial intelligence
- CBO = Congressional Budget Office
- CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- DHS = Demographic and Health Surveys
- Diff-in-diff / DiD = Difference-in-differences
- HIV/AIDS = Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- NIH = National Institutes of Health
- PRAMS = Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System
- SPHERE = Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center
- TANF = Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
- WHO= World Health Organization
Useful resources:
- Hamad R, Handler A, Hastings P, Shulman H. US Maternal and Infant Health Data: Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) in Crisis National PRAMS Convening Report. The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies; 2026.
- Wang G, Jackson KE, Hamad R. The Impact of the 2021 Child Tax Credit on Perinatal Health: Evidence From the Expansion and Postexpiration Periods. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2026;71(3):108360. doi:1016/j.amepre.2026.108360
- Committee on Policies and Programs to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty, Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Committee on National Statistics, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Reducing Intergenerational Poverty. (Duncan GJ, Gootman JA, Nalamada P, eds.). National Academies Press; 2024:27058. doi:17226/27058
- Wells WM, White JS, Collin DF, Wang G, Modrek S, Hamad R. Effects of US state paid family leave policies on perinatal and postpartum health: a quasi-experimental analysis. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2026;195(1):246-254. doi:1093/aje/kwaf010
- Hamad R, Dore EC, Wright E, Steedle R, Cowan SK. Economic Policies to Address Poverty as a Fundamental Determinant of Health: Existing Evidence and Future Directions. Annual Review of Public Health. 2026;47(1):177-195. doi:1146/annurev-publhealth-090924-033323
- Karasek D, Collin DF, Turner C, Hubbard E, Batra A, Hamad R. Critical Windows for Perinatal Health: Evaluating the Impacts of Timing of Poverty Alleviation Benefits. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2026;71(1):108319. doi:1016/j.amepre.2026.108319
- Wang G, Hamad R, White JS. Advances in Difference-in-differences Methods for Policy Evaluation Research. Epidemiology. 2024;35(5):628-637. doi:1097/EDE.0000000000001755
If you have any questions or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri
Research for episode preparation: 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.
Transferable skills, entrepreneurialism, and climate change in public health with Sandro Demaio
How does a medical doctor go from managing patients’ blood sugar and kidney failure to designing global health policy, and now to leading action on climate change? Sandro Demaio joins Salma to discuss his …
Show notes
How does a medical doctor go from managing patients’ blood sugar and kidney failure to designing global health policy, and now to leading action on climate change?
Sandro Demaio joins Salma to discuss his career from working as a clinician to leading health and climate change work for the Western Pacific Region of the WHO. They explore the skills that transfer across his roles in medicine and public health—systems thinking, communication, and entrepreneurialism—and examine why public health is often uncomfortable with that last word. They also discuss Sandro’s experience as a public communicator and advocate, from newspaper columns to a Netflix series to getting national vaping legislation through Parliament. Finally, they turn to climate change and discuss how to keep working on the same problems, while reframing the narrative, when the political or social environment isn’t receptive.
This episode invites you to reflect on why careers are rarely well-defined or linear, which skills transfer across roles, and how an entrepreneurial mindset can help public health keep pace with a changing world.
About the guest:
Sandro Demaio is the Director of the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health, based in Seoul. He is a physician with a PhD in noncommunicable diseases. His experience spans the World Health Organization in Geneva, where he worked on nutrition and food systems; leading the EAT Foundation through the launch of the EAT-Lancet Commission; running Victoria’s health promotion agency through the pandemic; and co-hosting a medical series that aired on national television in Australia and on Netflix.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this episode include:
- AI: artificial intelligence
- CEO: chief executive officer
- GP: general practitioner
- MPH: Master of Public Health
- NCD / NCDs: noncommunicable disease(s)
- PhD: Doctor of Philosophy
- UN: United Nations
- VicHealth: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation
- WHO: World Health Organization
Useful resources:
- Ask The Doctor. Netflix; 2017. https://www.netflix.com/title/81003997
- Demaio S, Edwards SJ, Ji JS, Nordström A, Shinee E, Mercado S. The next five years of the WHO Asia–Pacific Centre for Environment and Health. The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific. 2026;66:101782. doi:10.1016/j.lanwpc.2025.101782
- Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet. 2019;393(10170):447-492. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4
If you have any questions or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri
Research for episode preparation: Catalina Melendez Contreras and Mateo Diaz Quiroz
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.
Vaccine skepticism, political polarization, and the health risks of ads with Matthew Motta
How much of what you believe about health comes from your political identity and who you are listening to? Matt Motta joins Salma to explore how political identity shapes what people believe about health. They …
Show notes
How much of what you believe about health comes from your political identity and who you are listening to?
Matt Motta joins Salma to explore how political identity shapes what people believe about health. They start by discussing vaccines, revisiting the story of how a Lyme disease vaccine for humans failed to be socially accepted after it launched in 1998, and then turn to why vaccines have become a way to signal where you stand rather than a technical question. They cover state vaccine legislation, the stigmatization of mRNA vaccines after the COVID-19 pandemic, and where healthy scrutiny of new vaccines ends and stigma begins.
They then shift the conversation to discuss effective communication strategies, with Matt describing his field experiments with social media creators, discussing his current research on gambling ads and reflecting on what it has been like to communicate his own research to the public about politically contested topics.
This episode invites you to pause and reflect on the effects of the advertisements and information you come across before making your next health decisions.
About the guest
Matthew Motta is an Associate Professor of Health Law, Policy, & Management at Boston University's School of Public Health. He is also Affiliated Faculty with Harvard's TH Chan School of Public Health and a Research Fellow at the Policy Lab at Brown University. His research has two main foci around (i) the social and political determinants of anti-science attitudes and (ii) the design of effective communication strategies pertaining politically contentious scientific matters.
Notes
Acronyms used in this episode include:
- AI: Artificial intelligence
- AJPH: American Journal of Public Health
- BU: Boston University
- CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- CFTC: Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- GLP-1: Glucagon-like peptide-1
- GOP: Grand Old Party (also known as Republican Party)
- HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus
- KFF: Kaiser Family Foundation
- MAGA: Make America Great Again
- MAHA: Make America Healthy Again
- MMR: measles, mumps, rubella
- mRNA: Messenger ribonucleic acid
- PAHO: Pan American Health Organization
Useful resources:
- Liu Y, Motta M, Brenna K, et al. Training TikTok creators in mental health communication can benefit their audiences. Computers in Human Behavior Reports. 2026;22:101101. doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101101
- Louis C, Ross JC, Motta M. Sports Betting Ads are Everywhere. That Could be a Public Health Problem. J Gambl Stud. 2026;42(3):1321-1325. doi:10.1007/s10899-026-10497-0
- Motta M. Anti-Scientific Americans: The Prevalence, Origins, and Political Consequences of Anti-Intellectualism in the U.S. Oxford University Press; 2024.
- Motta M, Callaghan T. Quantifying the Polarization of Vaccine Policymaking Across State Legislatures. Published online 2026.
- Motta M, Callaghan T, Lipson SK, Ross J, Strombotne K, Louis C. The Public Health Impact of GLP-1 Advertising Exposure in the U.S. SocArXiv. Preprint posted online January 16, 2026. doi:10.31235/osf.io/gs5x4_v1
- Motta M. The potential public health consequences of “mRNA vaccine stigmatization” in the US. Polit life sci. Published online July 31, 2026:1-10. doi:10.1017/pls.2026.10027
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editor and producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri
Research for episode preparation: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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.
Ebola, MAHA, and what public health stops hearing with Craig Spencer
Why does public health still struggle to be trusted both at home and abroad? Craig and Salma discuss the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has disappeared from the news but …
Show notes
Why does public health still struggle to be trusted both at home and abroad?
Craig and Salma discuss the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has disappeared from the news but continues building up to be the largest outbreak in history. They discuss Craig’s personal experience as an Ebola survivor in 2014, and analyze how Ebola, and other global health emergencies, can seem very different from an epidemiologic perspective versus the perspective of the community living through it.
They then pivot to discuss domestic public health and Craig’s recent piece in The Atlantic highlighting that public health needs to take seriously the roughly 40% of Americans who support the MAHA movement and critiques of the piece, as well as Craig’s work on In Health We trust project.
This episode invites you to step outside the biomedical lens of public health crises and listen to people to understand their priorities from a social and humane standpoint.
About the guest:
Craig Spencer is an emergency physician and an Associate Professor of the Practice of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. His research is focused on community engagement and public trust in health systems, both in global and domestic settings. His current community-engaged research program, In Health We Trust, is focused on understanding how Americans relate to health, and aims to serve as a foundation for building a more responsive and equitable US public health system.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this episode include:
AAP = American Academy of Pediatrics
DC = Washington, DC
DRC = Democratic Republic of Congo
DOGE = Department of Government Efficiency
EKG = Electrocardiogram
FDA = Food and Drug Administration
HHS = Health and Human Services
HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus
IRBs = Institutional Review Boards
MAGA = Make America Great Again
MAHA = Make America Healthy Again
NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIH = National Institutes of Health
PEPFAR = President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
ROI = Return on investment
UK = United Kingdom
US = United States
USAID = United States Agency for International Development
WHO = World Health Organization
Useful resources:
Spencer C. Public Health Needs MAHA. The Atlantic. July 25, 2026. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/public-health-maha-rfk/688014/
If you have any questions or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri
Research for episode preparation: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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.
Listening to patients to improve health systems with Margaret Kruk
When was the last time a health system asked people for what they needed? Margaret Kruk joins Salma to discuss health systems and one of their key components: the experience of patients. They start their …
Show notes
When was the last time a health system asked people for what they needed?
Margaret Kruk joins Salma to discuss health systems and one of their key components: the experience of patients. They start their conversation with an overview of the functions and components of a health system and highlight that, similar to other service industries, healthcare needs to function for the people it serves and should check-in with these end-users. Margaret revisits her early-on experiences as a family doctor in rural Canada and in Kigoma, Tanzania, where she realized health systems were not responding to people’s needs, despite being designed as systems that should perform well. The conversation then shifts to discussing The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems, a joint effort of researchers, healthcare providers and health systems decision makers, to understand what data were available to track quality and what data were missing to respond to the most relevant questions of quality healthcare practice, finding that available measures of quality did not map to patients’ outcomes.
Shifting course, Margaret and Salma explore the People’s Voice Survey, a global survey currently measuring health systems’ quality in 23 countries based on people’s perceptions and confidence in the system. Margaret highlights the importance of confidence—reflecting security and endorsement of systems that people can count on when they need it—and the differences between mental health and chronic physical conditions.
Finally, they reflect on the future of primary care, starting with a brief recount of its history and mission. They examine the role of emerging technologies, and especially artificial intelligence, on empowering patients and getting them to demand better quality of systems, considering the improvement of health systems should be a shared endeavor.
This episode will invite you to reconsider what a truly patient-centered health system looks like, and what it takes to build one.
About the guest:
Margaret E. Kruk, MD, MPH is the Distinguished Professor of Health Systems and Medicine at Washington University Bursky School of Public Health and the Director of the QuEST Centers and Network. Her research focuses on how health systems, both in low- and high-income countries, can improve quality of care and health outcomes, as well as build public confidence in systems.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this podcast include:
- AI = Artificial Intelligence
- GDP = Gross Domestic Product
- QI = Quality Improvement
- UK = United Kingdom
- US = United States
- UN = United Nations
- UNDP = United Nations Development Programme
Useful resources:
- Kruk ME, Gage AD, Arsenault C, et al. High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era: time for a revolution. The Lancet Global Health. 2018;6(11):e1196-e1252. doi:1016/S2214-109X(18)30386-3
- Kruk ME, Pate M. The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems 1 year on: progress on a global imperative. The Lancet Global Health. 2020;8(1):e30-e32. doi:1016/S2214-109X(19)30485-1
- Kruk ME, Kapoor NR, Arsenault C, et al. Health system use and experience among people with poor mental health: A cross-sectional analysis of the People’s Voice Survey in 18 countries. Tang S, ed. PLoS Med. 2026;23(5):e1004745. doi:1371/journal.pmed.1004745
- MAVEN-Primary Care: AI-Powered Patient-Provider Collaboration to Transform Chronic Disease Management. Digital Intelligence & Innovation Accelerator. 2026. https://di2accelerator.wustl.edu/digital-transformation-corps/2026-projects/maven-primary-care-ai-powered-patient-provider-collaboration-to-transform-chronic-disease-management/
If you have any questions or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editor: Zach Linhares
Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras
Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri
Research for episode preparation: Mateo Diaz Quiroz
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.
Closing the know-do gap in global public health with Kumanan Rasanathan
In this last episode of the Building Better Ways of Knowing (BBWK) mini-series, Kumanan joins Salma to discuss knowledge systems and their articulations with public health practice in the global context. They …
Show notes
In this last episode of the Building Better Ways of Knowing (BBWK) mini-series, Kumanan joins Salma to discuss knowledge systems and their articulations with public health practice in the global context. They begin the conversation by reflecting on knowledge systems, how they have privileged and excluded different forms of knowledge, and how they have lagged behind transformations across other dimensions of society. They then touch on Kumanan’s experience working for a meningococcal B vaccine randomized control trial (RCT) in New Zealand to depict how some forms of knowledge generation don’t reflect real-world scenarios.
They then shift course to discuss the emergence of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in 1999 and the functions it serves in the global health scenario to close the “know-do gap”: supporting high-quality research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), building research capacity in LMICs, and advocating for and building the field. Finally, they discuss the changing global power dynamics with increased within-country inequities and rising health sovereignty, Professor Wasi’s concept of "The triangle that moves mountains” to describe what is needed for long-lasting change, and the expected future of universities and healthcare with the rise of artificial intelligence.
This closing conversation sums up the interdisciplinary conversations hosted during this BBWK summer mini-series and invites you to comprehensively reflect on how knowledge generation intersects with real-life scenarios.
About the guest:
Kumanan Rasanathan is the Executive Director of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a public health physician with a strong background in health policy and systems research and extensive experience working at different levels of the World Health Organization and within the wider UN system. As part of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Kumanan and his team lead the global learning component of the Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- AI = Artificial Intelligence
- LLM = Large Language Model
- RCT = Randomized Controlled Trial
- SAS = Statistical Analysis System
- WHO = World Health Organization
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
Purple Public Health episode—NIH funding, broken by design with Michael Lauer
Almost nothing about how the United States government funds health research was chosen. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began with leftover penicillin money and a letter to medical school deans. The …
Show notes
Almost nothing about how the United States government funds health research was chosen. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began with leftover penicillin money and a letter to medical school deans. The decision to fund projects rather than people came from a foundation protecting itself during the Depression. The paperwork came from a congressman who was annoyed in 1962.
Michael Lauer spent nearly two decades at the NIH, serving as Deputy Director for Extramural Research from 2015 until 2025. He joins Salma to trace how these accidents hardened into a system that leaves scientists dependent on grants for their salaries, concentrates most of the money in a small number of hands, and does not grant most researchers independence until their mid-forties. They discuss what could be done differently, and the question that has gone unanswered since the 1940s: who should decide what science gets done.
Dr. Lauer suggests that the current situation being faced by the NIH and researchers is the result of these structural problems and highlights that while there is a crisis, it is also an opportunity to restructure funding and research incentives.
This episode asks whether the current inflection point in research funding might be the opening needed to rethink a system that was never quite designed to work.
Notes:
Acronyms used in this episode include:
- CTSA = Clinical and Translational Science Awards
- IACUCs = Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees
- IRB = Institutional Review Board
- MIRA = Maximizing Investigators' Research Award
- NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NCI = National Cancer Institute
- NHLBI = National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- NIAID = National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- NIGMS = National Institute of General Medical Sciences
- NIH = National Institutes of Health
- NSF = National Science Foundation
- PCORI = Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
- R01 = Research Project Grant
Fact checks:
- Glenn Seaborg was Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley between 1958 and 1961
About the guest:
Michael Lauer is a cardiologist and physician-scientist who served as the Director of the Office of Extramural Research and the Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between October 2015 and February 2025. As Director for Extramural Research he led the NIH funding processes for universities, medical schools, and research organizations outside of the United States government.
Useful resources:
- Bush V. Science, The Endless Frontier - 75th Anniversary Edition. National Science Foundation. Published online 2023. https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75th_w.pdf
- Kratsios M. Science, A New Golden Age. Office of Science and Technology Policy; 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/science/
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.
With, not for: communities as public health co-designers with Sara Bannoura and Darren Jackson
Sara and Darren join Salma to discuss Civic City’s community-first model. They start the conversation by exploring how Civic City uses knowledge, narrative, and design to co-create solutions with communities …
Show notes
Sara and Darren join Salma to discuss Civic City’s community-first model. They start the conversation by exploring how Civic City uses knowledge, narrative, and design to co-create solutions with communities. To make this tangible, they delve into the Food City STL initiative, which started off by deep community listening and led to a city resolution declaring food as a human right.
Pertaining to the role of academic research and knowledge generation, Sara and Darren talk about their collaboration with University of Missouri St. Louis, which began as something transactional and evolved to a true co-creation partnership. They also highlight the value of data, acknowledging that “data is gold”, and argue that communities sit on valuable knowledge that institutions often extract without returning value instead of sharing the findings back with the communities. Finally, they emphasize that knowledge, agency, and capacity are the three things needed to move from knowledge to action, and underscore the importance of creating new spaces to foster interaction and collaboration between academia, journalism, and community. However, they note that these interactions must acknowledge that knowledge generation and co-creation processes are scalable, but the solutions that result from them are not.
If you’ve wondered what true community involvement in research looks like, and how it can evolve to ensure true co-creation of knowledge, this episode will give you concrete ideas to help catalyze this shift.
About the guests:
Darren Jackson is Founder of Civic City, a community-first civic venture studio in St. Louis that works with communities, industry, and government to build solutions and opportunities to public challenges. He is a civic innovation leader specializing in human-centered design, applying data, empathy, and creative problem-solving to help communities and institutions build cities for all. He previously served as Executive Sourcing Partner and Advisor to Meta, Adobe, Block, and IDEO, aiming to bridge innovation with civic impact.
Sara Bannoura is Co-Founder of Civic City, where she helps lead the Food for All campaign. She is a journalist and civic systems leader who explores how storytelling, community knowledge, and lived experience shape public systems and policy. She previously served as senior producer in local television news, produced a feature documentary on the fentanyl crisis in St. Louis, and led coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic and reported daily on public health data and disparities while documenting the lived realities of communities navigating unequal access to essential resources.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- CEO = Chief Executive Officer
- COO = Chief Operating Officer
- DRC = Democratic Republic of Congo
- USML = University of Missouri, St Louis
Useful resources:
1.For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis and Why It Matters for Everyone. Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University; 2015. https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/3/1454/files/2018/06/FSOA_report_2-17zd1xm.pdf
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
The future of higher education with Mitchell Stevens and Sandro Galea
This episode is a re-run of the Ideas Matter podcast episode “The Future of Higher Education” hosted by Dean Sandro Galea—Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives at WashU and Co-Director of the Building …
Show notes
This episode is a re-run of the Ideas Matter podcast episode “The Future of Higher Education” hosted by Dean Sandro Galea—Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives at WashU and Co-Director of the Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative—in conversation with Professor Mitchell Stevens. The original episode was released by Ideas Matter on May 26, 2026.
In this episode, Dean Galea and Dr. Stevens discuss the current state of higher education, and the challenges and opportunities that result from thismoment of institutional change and fourth industrial revolution.
Looking back, Dean Galea and Dr. Stevens examine the values that have sustained higher education throughout its history, the historical role of education as a service, economic, civic and moral provider to the nation, and the main pathway towards economic mobility. They highlighted that the majority of the nation does not access or complete college, which has resulted in the economic, cultural, and political splits that have contributed to current polarization levels. They unpack challenges related to unaffordability, unrestrained costs, and the student-debt crisis; the moral/civic question of who should be responsible for the lifelong employability of American people; the threats posed to current higher education by the shrinking pool of youth and young adults, technological leaps, and the “casualization” of faculty.
Looking forward, they discuss the challenge that AI poses to the long-held idea that expert knowledge lives irreplaceably in human minds and Dr. Stevens suggests that a paradigm shift, moving away from school-centric logics of human capital towards new hybrid models and the investment in people’s capabilities across the life course, should be adopted.
If you wonder what higher education will look like amidst the fourth industrial revolution catalyzed by AI and the demographic shift, this episode will offer a clear framework to understand how we got here and how things might unfold.
About the guest:
Mitchell Stevens is Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) at Stanford University, where he also convenes the Pathways Network and the Futures Project on Education and the Learning Society. His research focuses on educational sequences, lifelong learning, alternative educational forms, and the formal organization of knowledge.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- AI = Artificial intelligence
- K-12 = Kindergarten through 12th grade
- MOOC = Massive open online course
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Ryan Rhea and Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
The inherent values of science and public health with Anya Plutynski
How do values shape the actions and agenda of public health science? Anya and Salma begin their conversation by discussing how values are inherently embedded in every decision that scientists make, but cannot …
Show notes
How do values shape the actions and agenda of public health science?
Anya and Salma begin their conversation by discussing how values are inherently embedded in every decision that scientists make, but cannot be considered a contaminant of science, as they are an unavoidable part of how research is designed and conducted. To elaborate on this point, Anya explains the concept of inductive risk—the risk resulting from a value-laden choice—and highlights how it constantly shapes science, for example by setting the standard of evidence of p-values or the guidelines to classify mental health disorders. From there, they also discuss the current debate about the politicization of public health, acknowledging that science is inherently political and highlighting the importance of transparency about values to promote objectivity in research. Finally, they reflect on the factthat the public health field continues to ask meta-science questions that philosophy of science has been addressing for decades rather than engaging with other fields.
About the guest:
Anya Plutynski, PhD is Professor of Philosophy at the Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on the philosophy of science, with an emphasis on the research conducted by biologists and biomedical researchers.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- DSM = Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- HAM-D = Hamilton Depression Rating Scale
- HITOP = Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology
- NIH = National Institutes of Health
- RCT = Randomized Controlled Trial
- RDoC = Research Domain Criteria
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
Past turning points, present tensions, and the future of public health with Merlin Chowkwanyun
How and why have certain methods, topics, and assumptions been favored by public health throughout history, and how has that shaped the truths we know today? Merlin joins Salma to discuss how history provides …
Show notes
How and why have certain methods, topics, and assumptions been favored by public health throughout history, and how has that shaped the truths we know today?
Merlin joins Salma to discuss how history provides the framework to understand how specific moments in time have shaped the research preferred by public health, illustrating that these priorities are not timeless but shift according to time-bound contexts. They use the Toxic Docs project as a prime example to highlight the value of archival data, showing how once-secret corporate records can expose the interference of industry interests on scientific activities and knowledge building. Shifting focus, they also examine the risks associated with the field's over-reliance on federal funding and the importance of understanding the legal and legislative frameworks governing these resources to better protect public health initiatives from political tensions and policy shifts. Finally, they discuss the friction between community knowledge and institutional expertise, emphasizing that neither "communities always know best" nor "experts are always right" serves as a sufficient answer.
About the guest:
Merlin Chowkwanyun, PhD, MPH is the Donald H. Gemson Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health. Their research is focused on the history of health, with an emphasis on community and environmental health, racial inequity, and social activism for health.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- DEI = Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- MAHA = Make America Healthy Again
- NIH = National Institutes of Health
- RWJF = Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- TSCA = Toxic Substances Control Act
Useful resources:
- Toxic Docs: Toxicdocs.org
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
History, stories and the shaping of public health with Rebecca Messbarger
What is the relevance of history, and individual stories, when framing current public health research and practice? Rebecca and Salma discuss the role of population-level history, and individual stories, in …
Show notes
What is the relevance of history, and individual stories, when framing current public health research and practice?
Rebecca and Salma discuss the role of population-level history, and individual stories, in public health as part of the active tools for framing and translating research and interventions. To illustrate this, they use a historical case from 18th century Bologna and show how authority over the body and knowledge has shifted across time, and whose stories get remembered or erased. Similarly, they analyze examples from the 1348 plague, the 1918 influenza, and Covid to explore the long history of mistrust in medical authority. Overall, they make the case for the routine integration of humanists, artists, and historians into public health institutions, and argue for the potential of performance and the arts as tools for reshaping public health narratives and behavior.
About the guest:
Dr Rebecca Messbarger is Professor of Italian and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Italian at the Washington University in St louis Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and has a secondary appointment as Professor of Public Health at the Bursky School of Public Health. Rebecca researches the Italian Enlightenment, with a focus on the role of women in civic and academic life, and the intersections of anatomy and art, and medicine and religion.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- AIDS = Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
Useful resources:
The Eye: A Medical Humanities Podcast — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-eye-a-medical-humanities-podcast/id1814000357
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
The future of science and the replication crisis with John Ioannidis and Sandro Galea
This episode is a re-run of the Ideas Matter podcast episode “The Future of Science and the Replication Crisis” hosted by Dean Sandro Galea, Co-Director of the Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative, in …
Show notes
This episode is a re-run of the Ideas Matter podcast episode “The Future of Science and the Replication Crisis” hosted by Dean Sandro Galea, Co-Director of the Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative, in conversation with Professor John Ioannidis. The original episode was released by Ideas Matter on May 19, 2026.
This episode begins with a discussion of Dr. Ioannidis’ paper about how most research findings cannot be replicated. Following the argument of this paper, Dean Galea and Dr. Ioannidis unpack the structural and statistical forces—incentives, funding, tenure, and conflicts of interest—that drive this replication challenge, and highlight the progress that has been made despite these challenges, using genetic epidemiology as an example. They also discuss the pandemic, and how it served as a stress-test for science, requiring disciplines to show their capacity to rapid response but also promoting low-quality research.
Forward-facing, Dean Galea and Dr. Ioannidis discuss the role of AI and LLMs in both improving and potentially deteriorating science, including the rise of fake papers and the privatization of knowledge, they formulate what success for science might look like in 20-30 years, debate how scientists should handle controversy and pushback, and highlight the of humility in science and remaining open to being wrong.
If you have ever questioned whether science is getting things right, this conversation will give you both an honest answer and reasons for cautious optimism.
About the guest:
John Ioannidis is the George E. and Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and Professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University. His research focuses on improving research methods and practices to generate more reliable, trustworthy, and useful evidence. He is among the most cited scholars in Clinical Medicine, Social Sciences and Psychiatry/Psychology, and is the author of the most-accessed article in the history of Public Library of Science.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
AI = Artificial Intelligence
LLM = Large Language Models
Useful resources:
Ioannidis JPA. Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Med. 2005;2(8):e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Ryan Rhea and Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
Changing public health paradigms with Whitney Robinson
What does it take to shift a public health narrative and are researchers ready when the moment comes? Whitney and Salma start their conversation discussing Whitney’s move from obesity to gynecologic research …
Show notes
What does it take to shift a public health narrative and are researchers ready when the moment comes?
Whitney and Salma start their conversation discussing Whitney’s move from obesity to gynecologic research, highlighting how gynecologic conditions and overall women’s midlife health are understudied, as well as how obesity narratives remain focused on the individual willpower, despite a strong body of evidence pointing to environmental and structural causes. Then, they delve into Whitney’s experience as a social epidemiologist embedded in a clinical environment, discuss the tensions between quantitative work and advocacy in social epidemiology, and highlight the dangers of academics making assumptions about communities without talking to them.
Reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, Whitney and Salma also analyze how the pandemic pushed researchers toward more public-facing communication and look at the role of narrative and political moments in shifting public health paradigms, the importance of being ready when those windows of opportunity open, and the need for academics to engage with political stakeholders as a long-term investment.
This conversation will challenge you to think about who public health researchers are actually talking to and who they should be aiming to reach.
About the guest:
Whitney R Robinson is Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Duke University School of Medicine, Member of the Duke Cancer Institute, and Core Faculty Member of the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy. Her research currently focuses on understanding why rates of disease for non-cancerous gynecologic conditions like endometriosis, fibroids, and PCOS vary across population groups. Previously, her research had focused on disparities for obesity.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus
- NIH = National Institutes of Health
- RCT = Randomized Controlled Trial
- MAHA = Make America Healthy Again
- AI = Artificial Intelligence
- SER = Society for Epidemiological Research
- OBGYN = Obstetrics and Gynecology
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
What the data can and cannot tell us about our health with Katherine Keyes
Katherine Keyes joins Salma to discuss the strengths and limitations of epidemiology, beginning with the gap between what averages tell us about populations and what they fail to predict about individuals. They …
Show notes
Katherine Keyes joins Salma to discuss the strengths and limitations of epidemiology, beginning with the gap between what averages tell us about populations and what they fail to predict about individuals. They explore how that gap is a frequent source of public misunderstanding, how self-experimentation can mislead through placebo effects and confounding, and why public health needs to be more transparent and humble about the strengths and limitations of its evidence base. As Katherine and Salma argue, the public can handle nuance when it is communicated honestly.
They then turn to what makes a research question worth asking, arguing that good questions should aim probe where existing theories produce anomalies in addition to expanding the existing evidence base, and that the questions any of us can ask are shaped by the "thought collectives" we operate within. Drawing on Katherine's work in psychiatric epidemiology, they discuss why rising mental health trends are likely multifactorial, before closing on the importance of engaging communities and carrying knowledge beyond traditional academic environments.
This episode invites you to look beyond the data, to understand the context in which it was produced, recognize its limits, and consider what it means to communicate those limits honestly to the public.
About the guest:
Dr. Katherine Keyes is the Susan Lasker Brody Professor of Population Mental Health and Vice Chair for Research at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on psychiatric and substance use epidemiology across the life course, with a particular interest in methodological challenges and in outcomes such as suicide and overdose.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- DSM = Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- GLP-1 = Glucagon-Like Peptide-1
- RCT = Randomized Controlled Trial
Useful resources:
- Keyes KM. What Makes Something Worth Knowing? Epistemology and Public Health Impact. Epidemiology. 2026;37(3):371-373. doi:1097/EDE.0000000000001957
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
Purple Public Health episode—Disagreement as a starting point with Brinda Adhikari
How can you engage in healthy and fruitful conversation with people who think differently? Brinda Adhikari joins Salma to discuss the importance of healthy disagreement and unpack how conversations between …
Show notes
How can you engage in healthy and fruitful conversation with people who think differently?
Brinda Adhikari joins Salma to discuss the importance of healthy disagreement and unpack how conversations between people who think differently can look like. Reflecting on Brinda’s experience in journalism and especially as co-host of “Why Should I Trust You?”—bringing together public health experts, physicians, and people deeply skeptical of both—they discuss the tools to set up and facilitate a hard conversation and the importance of engaging in these conversations to understand others’ points of view rather than to persuading them to change their positions. They also touch on some of the challenges that arise when facilitating these conversations and highlight why connection is a better measure of success. As Brinda points out, hard conversations should be treated as dinner parties, where debates can get rowdy, but people end the night wanting to meet again.
In a time of increasing mistrust and intolerance, this conversation will invite you to explore how to engage and connect across differences.
About the guest:
Brinda Adhikari is Co-Host, Co-Creator and Executive Producer of the top ranked “Why Should I Trust You?” podcast, which explores the erosion of trust in science and public health. She has over 25 years of experience in impactful storytelling and leadership across the streaming, digital, podcast and broadcast space, as a leader, producer, reporter, and a strategist.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this conversation include:
- MAHA — Make America Healthy Again
- NIH — National Institutes of Health
- APHA — American Public Health Association
- AI — Artificial Intelligence
Useful resources:
- Why Should I Trust You (podcast):
- Edelman Trust Institute. 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report Trust and Health. 2026. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2026-04/2026%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Special%20Report%20Trust%20and%20Health_Final.pdf
- O’Brian NA, Kent TB. Partisanship and Trust in Personal Doctors: Causes and Consequences. Brit J Polit Sci. 2025;55:e34. doi:1017/S0007123424000607
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.
From public health evidence to action with Alonzo Plough
What does it take to close the gap between evidence and action in public health? As part of the first episode of the Building Better Ways of Knowing mini-series, Alonzo Plough joins Salma to reflect on the …
Show notes
What does it take to close the gap between evidence and action in public health?
As part of the first episode of the Building Better Ways of Knowing mini-series, Alonzo Plough joins Salma to reflect on the inaugural convening of the initiative and to discuss the expectations for the project and future convenings. They discuss the mismatches between the evidence generated in academia and the knowledge needed to improve population health. They explore the mechanisms for incorporating community knowledge in the knowledge production system in a more "valid" way while still maintaining rigor and standards, and the importance of primary data and the evolution of its role and acquisition in the era of AI. They also discuss the gap between training of public health students and what they do in practice. They also analyze public health communications—with Alonzo providing a strategy to navigate what media to consume and how to consume it to mitigate biases—and the deterioration of trust and increased polarization of science.
This conversation will challenge you to question whether public health has been asking the right questions and to imagine what better ones might look like.
About the guest:
Alonzo Plough, PhD, MPH is Chief Science Officer and Vice President Research-Evaluation-Learning at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he works on broadening what counts as valid evidence, diversifying the health science workforce, building equitable data systems, and understanding how place and environment drive health inequities. He previously worked in academia and directed public health departments in Boston, Seattle, and Los Angeles.
Notes:
Acronyms mentioned in this episode include:
- CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- MAHA = Make America Healthy Again
- MD = Doctor of Medicine
- MPH = Master of Public Health
- PAHO = Pan American Health Organization
- RWJF = Rober Wood Johnson Foundation
- WHO = World Health Organization
Fact-check: In minute 16:00, Salma mentions we launched a survey looking at trust in institutions across eight countries and found that trust in scientists and academia in the US was reported by 42% of respondents. The survey found that 48.0% of US respondents reported high trust in scientists and academia.
Useful resources:
- Abdalla, S., Melendez Contreras, C., Wang, Y. et al.Institutional and social trust across eight countries: distribution across sociodemographic groups and relevance for population health. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-07684-0
Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla
Editor: Catalina Melendez Contreras
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 guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.
Introducing the Building Better Ways of Knowing summer mini-series
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 …
Show notes
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?” include, in order of appearance:
- Alonzo Plough — Chief Science Officer and Vice President Research-Evaluation-Learning, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Merlin Chowkwanyun — Donald H. Gemson Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Rachel Sachs — Professor of Law and Co-Director of The Cordell Institute, WashU School of Law
- Whitney Robinson — Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University School of Medicine
- John Ioannidis — Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University
- Katherine Keyes — Professor of Epidemiology, Susan Lasker Brody Professor of Population Mental Health, and Vice Chair for Research, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Guests responding to the question “What do you think needs to happen to strengthen how we produce and use knowledge in population health?” include, in order of appearance:
- Kumanan Rasanathan — Executive Director, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization
- Sara Bannoura — Co-Founder, Civic City
- Darren Jackson — Founder, Civic City
- Paula Brakeman — Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine and Founding Director of the Center for Health Equity, University of California, San Francisco
Host: 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.
Purple Public Health episode—Autonomy and public health with Justin Bernstein
When and how, if ever, can public health compromise individual autonomy to prioritize the population’s health? Professor Justin Bernstein joins Salma to discuss the different types of autonomy and liberty, from …
Show notes
When and how, if ever, can public health compromise individual autonomy to prioritize the population’s 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 public’s 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 Intelligence
- SEP: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Useful resources:
- Bernstein J. The case against libertarian arguments for compulsory vaccination. J Med Ethics. 2017;43(11):792-796. doi:1136/medethics-2016-103857
- Bernstein J, Jayaram A, Hutler B. Assessing the Liberty-Based Case Against Pandemic Lockdowns. ken. 2025;35(2):163-196. doi:1353/ken.2025.a987088
- Faden 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.
The Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health, and Justice with Kathryn Bowen and Jemilah Mahmood
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 …
Show notes
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 — 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 — justice, connection, and imagination — 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 water’s edge: a Lancet Commission on sea-level rise, health, and justice. The Lancet. 2026;407(10537):1408-1409. doi:1016/S0140-6736(26)00257-6
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.
The past, present and future of global health with Gbenga Ogedegbe and Benjamin Mason Meier
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 …
Show notes
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 year—the simultaneous withdrawal of U.S. funding across USAID, PEPFAR, and NIH, the exit from WHO, and the decline of European contributions—and 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=3mLohUgBu9U
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.
Purple Public Health episode—Trust and population health with Erin O’Malley
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 …
Show notes
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 States—from the lasting impact of the Covid pandemic to the role of political polarization in eroding institutional trustworthiness—and 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 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.
Missing Americans: preventable mortality in the US with Dr. Andrew Stokes
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 …
Show notes
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 States—1933–2021. 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.
Purple Public Health episode—Beyond blame: understanding public health errors with Dr. Itai Bavli
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 …
Show notes
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 examples—including the approval of Oxycontin in the US and Canada—they 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.2023.67
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.
Higher spending, shorter lifespan with Dr. Jose Francisco Figueroa
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 …
Show notes
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 controls—screening, 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 causes—such as regulations, taxes on harmful products, firearm laws—lag well behind peer countries. Also, a major policy lever of the past two decades, value-based payment reform, hasn’t 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:1215/03616878-11995200
- Papanicolas I, Niksch M, Figueroa JF. Avoidable Mortality Across US States and High-Income Countries. JAMA Intern Med. 2025;185(5):583. doi:1001/jamainternmed.2025.0155
- Papanicolas 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)00222-1
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.
Re-release: Curiosity and careful thinking about research can help change the world with Dr. Maria Glymour
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 …
Show notes
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: “How much of your essay do you think anyone else could write?”
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 Linhares
Marketing: 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.Aging safely and independently at home with Dr. Susy Stark
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 …
Show notes
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 “pyramid” to an aging “column,” 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.2021.22044
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.
How much evidence is enough? Australia's digital protections with Dr. Kathryn Backholer
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 …
Show notes
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. Kathryn’s 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 Kathryn’s 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 “perfect” evidence can sometimes mean missing critical policy windows.
The episode is anchored in a live policy moment: Australia’s recent decision to delay social media access for people under 16. Kathryn discusses how evidence informed this world-first policy, what it can — and cannot — 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/cwyp9d3ddqyo
- Backholer K, Pathirana NL. #DigitalYouth. Deakin University; 2024. https://iht.deakin.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/2024/06/Digital-Youth-brief-Final-2.pdf
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.
Introducing Purple Public Health Project with Dean Sandro Galea
Does public health belong to people with a specific perspective, or is it—as the term implies—for the public at large? Today’s episode is different. Dean Sandro Galea, Dean and Distinguished Professor at WashU …
Show notes
Does public health belong to people with a specific perspective, or is it—as the term implies—for the public at large?
Today’s 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-health
- Healthier Futures Lab. www.healthierfutureslab.org
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.
The field formerly known as global health with Dr. Seye Abimbola
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 …
Show notes
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 health—and 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 “gaze” versus “pose,” 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 “field formerly known as global health” could become.
Useful resources:
- Abimbola S. The Foreign Gaze: Essays on Global Health. IRD éditions; 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-2019-002068
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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