Dr Bianca Brijnath, Curtin University
I am an early career researcher in medical anthropology, primary health care, and public health. My research interests are practically and theoretically oriented and centre on issues of mental health, maternal and child health, and cross-cultural meanings of health and illness. I have a strong qualitative background and have taught and researched in India, Australia and Zambia. I completed my PhD in 2010 on dementia care in India and joined the Department of General Practice at Monash University in April 2011. Prior to this I was a Global Report Fellow in the World Health Organization's Tropical Disease Research (WHO/TDR) programme. My current research activities focus on two major projects: the first is an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council funded postdoctoral fellowship which examines Indian-and Anglo-Australians use of antidepressants. The second project is a consultancy with the World Bank where I am the qualitative research specialist for a programme on health results-based financing with special emphasis on maternal and child health in developing countries. I work specifically on the impact evaluation in Zambia and my tasks include designing the qualitative impact evaluation, building local capacity in qualitative methods, analysing and publishing results. To date I have published 20 peer-review articles, including my most prestigious award as one of eight global winners in the Young Voices in Health Research essay competition (2009) in The Lancet. |