Bruce Neal: Changing the way the world makes, markets and eats food

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Consumption of processed and pre-packaged foods has increased in rural India Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Bruce Neal had been working on his doctorate on cardiovascular disease with the George Institute’s co-founder, Stephen MacMahon, in Auckland. It was 1999, Stephen and Robyn Norton were contemplating setting up an Institute focusing on the health consequences of chronic diseases in low and middle-income countries, and invited him to join.

“It was a novel idea to set up an Institute to address cardiovascular diseases and injuries in low-middle income settings. Until that time almost all the big international research institutes working in low- and middle-income countries focused on maternal and child health. So, I seized the opportunity and moved to Sydney”, says Professor Neal, who was born in the port city of Aden in Yemen. He studied medicine at Bristol University in England and worked for four years in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service before moving to New Zealand to begin a research career.

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Rebecca Ivers: Reducing the global burden of injury through effective prevention and trauma care

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By Neena Bhandari

Growing up in suburban south Sydney, Rebecca Ivers and her siblings were always encouraged to strive for academic excellence and work towards making a positive difference in people’s lives. She got involved with a group called Student Initiatives in Community Health while doing her undergraduate degree in optometry at the University of New South Wales [UNSW]. It triggered her interest in population and public health and gave her an understanding and interest in inequality.

It was while practising as an optometrist in the Northern Territory that she discovered that few Aboriginal people would come to their clinics. She became keenly interested in the health of Australia’s first people and began working for the Northern Territory Aboriginal Eye Health Committee.

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Rohina Joshi: Improving access to healthcare via task-sharing between doctors & healthcare workers

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By Neena Bhandari

Growing up on the Christian Medical College campus in Ludhiana [Punjab], Rohina Joshi knew very little about professions other than medicine. She would see her dietician mother educate her staff about the ill-effects of tobacco and her dentist father promote oral health among school children. The amalgamation of all these influences motivated her to enrol in medicine.

In the very first year, she became aware of the power of prevention and realised that one can actually prevent people from falling sick. By her third year in medical college, she was certain that she wanted to do public health or community medicine. She did a Master of Public Health degree from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram [Kerala].

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