The Meaning of Health Podcast

Ingrid and Craig chat with Dr Mohammed Junaid from the UWA Dental School and Oral Health Centre of Western Australia. Junaid is a practicing public health dentist, lecturer and researcher, who trained in India and obtained professional qualifications from Royal Colleges of Glasgow and England before completing his PhD at UWA. As part of his role, he organises the Clinics to Communities program in...

Continuing our aged care series, Dorina chats with Jo-aine Hang, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia and private physio therapist, and Cheng, a Health sociologist at the University of Western Australia. They speak on healthy aging, managing fall risks and keeping up cognitive function. Interestingly, they discuss how hospitals can be a cautionary environment for elderly patien...

We kick off our series looking at aged care and the health of aging populations with a conversation with Dr Simone Marino, a researcher at Edith Cowan University. Simone’s work is at the intersection of aging, dementia and cultural anthropology. Simone also serves as a Music & Cultural Engagement Consultant for WA InCasa Aged Care. Simone discusses his background working with migrant communiti...

We celebrate International Women’s Day in this special live episode, recorded at the University of Western Australia on 9 March 2026. The panel was hosted by Prof Fiona McGaughey, Pro Vice Chancellor Academic Advancement & Diversity at UWA. The panel featured UWA academics Prof Pat Dudgeon, Prof Caitlin Wyrwoll, Prof Tanya Fitzgerald and Dr Dani Barrington. You can read more about the panellis...

We continue our mental health series as Courtney and Craig chat with Marnie, Mark and Greg about their work using narrative therapy to help people navigate life’s challenges. Our guests compare and contrast how narrative therapy and western medical approaches can differ. The conversation covers themes such as respectful practice, group work, addressing violent behaviour and working with people wit...

Leah and Craig are joined by Nicky and Jason from Anxiety UK as we continue our mental health series. Nicky and Jason talk us through how Anxiety UK came about, and the many and varied activities it carries out to help provide support for people living with various forms of anxiety in the UK. We discussed how as a peer-led organisation, Anxiety UK’s approach is informed by people who are living wi...

As we return for 2026, we kick off our mental health series with a great conversation between Dr Ingrid Stacey and Lockie Cooke, founder and CEO of iyarn. iyarn is a digital platform designed to help to support people to keep track of their health and wellbeing across a range of domains, including mental health. Lockie talks through his inspiration for developing iyarn, and discusses how the platf...

This is our traditional annual Christmas episode, a rambling chat about the highs and lows of the year and some truly awful Christmas jokes with Ingrid, Leah, Dorinda and Craig, with a musical surprise from the 2025 edition of Let's Present. Wishing everyone a safe and relaxing festive period, and looking forward to brining you some more interesting conversations with people about different aspect...

For this episode Dorinda visited the offices of Developmental Disability WA (DDWA) with our practicum student Sumaya and speaks with 3 guests with experience living with developmental disability and navigating the health system as consumers. James, a member of the DDWA advisory council, discusses some positive experiences with hospitals and the support he received from his parents and doctors, as...

Dorinda and Craig sat down for a chat with Caroline Yates, a registered nurse, educator and Director of SN Services for this episode. Caroline talks through her background as an RN, as well as an educator, and how she came to start a company that provides complex clinical care for people living at home with a disability. She also discusses the formation of the WA Complex Care Alliance, aimed at im...

In this episode Craig and Dorinda sat down with Barbara Goodwin from Care Corner and Mia Hagbro-Tedeschi from Mechanical Rock to discuss the Care Corner app, which was designed to help with care coordination for individuals with complex disabilities. Barbara, a part-time UWA employee and mother to a son with multiple disabilities, discusses the many challenges that she and many families of people...

In this episode Dorinda sits down for a chat with Erin Marshall, co-Deputy Chair of Disability Assembly WA. Erin discusses her experience living with cerebral palsy among other health challenges, as well as the impact that hidden disabilities and employment challenges can have on people living with disability more broadly. She highlights the need for better disability education and support for emp...

In this episode we sit down for a chat with Mark Fitzpatrick, CEO of PeopleKind Group. Mark has an extensive career working in the disability sector, including roles as Deputy President of the Deafness Council and a member of the Executive of the Hearing Health Sector Alliance. This range of experience, along with previous CEO roles at Telethon Speech and Hearing and St Vincent de Paul Society has...

Dorinda is joined by Chanel & Esme as we continue our series on disability. Chanel talks us through her journey over the last few years since she acquired a brain injury due to a traumatic event, and discusses some of the challenges she has faced, both due to her injury and the symptoms she manages, including hearing loss and balance issues, as well as the complexities navigating the health sy...

To kick off our new series that explores disability from a range of perspectives, Dorinda ‘t Hart sits down for a chat with Monique Power, founder and Director of Ripple Ability, a company set up to help families caring for young children with disability to navigate the National Disability Insurance Scheme to ensure that both the children and their families can lead fulfilling and healthy lives. M...

In this episode we bring you a conversation with Ina Jurga, International Coordinator for Menstrual Hygiene Day and Technical Lead for Menstrual Health and Hygiene at WASH United. Ina joined hosts Leah Roberts and Dr. Dani Barrington to share her journey from working as a civil engineer to becoming a global advocate for menstrual health, shaped by her experiences in countries such as India, Uganda...

In this episode of The Meaning of Health, we’re joined by Associate Professor Erin Morton, CEO, and founder of Bespoke Clinical Research, to explore the often-overlooked topic of perimenopause and menopause. Erin shares her professional expertise and personal experiences navigating perimenopause, which inspired her to establish the Vital Perimenopause Registry—a project capturing community perspec...

In this episode, Craig chats with Dr Juliana de Oliveira Costa, Research Fellow at the Medicines Intelligence Research Program, UNSW Sydney. Juliana is a pharmacist and pharmacoepidemiologist who uses big health data to study and improve medicine use across populations. They discuss SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists—modern type 2 diabetes medicines now known for heart, kidney, and weigh...

In this episode we chat about the sub-committees that provide advice to the main Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. We are joined by Prof Richard Norman from the Economic Sub-Committee (ESC), and Prof Chris Etherton-Beer, Chair of the Drug Utilisation Sub-Committee (DUSC). Richard is a health economist, so talks us through some of the health economic measures and considerations that go in...

In this special NAIDOC Week episode of The Meaning of Health podcast, Ingrid is joined by Associate Professor Aunty Vicky Wade and Professor Bep Uink for a discussion about the importance of heart health among Noongar women and Aboriginal communities more broadly. Together, they explore the central role of Noongar women as matriarchs, healers, and cultural leaders, and how these responsibilities c...

In this episode, we speak with Dr Monica Tang, a medical oncologist at the Prince of Wales Hospital and researcher at the University of New South Wales. Monica shares her clinical and academic journey, highlighting how her experience with patients and real-world data is reshaping cancer care in Australia. She discusses her specialisation in breast cancer treatment and the collaborative approach ta...

Welcome to a new series looking at Medicines in Australia. To kick off our medicines series, this episode features conversations with Professor Robyn Ward, Chair of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), and Ms Jo Watson, PBAC deputy-chair. Robyn briefly discusses her work as a cancer oncologist and researcher and has taken up a new position as Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) and...

Continuing our series on women’s health, Ingrid and Craig sat down for a chat with respected endocrinologists Prof Bronwyn Stuckey from the Keogh Institute and Dr Kharis Burns from Royal Perth Hospital. We discussed a range of women’s health issues that endocrinologists help their patients deal with, such as diabetes, and reproductive health issues ranging from menstrual issues through to IVF and...

We continue our women’s health series with a chat with Dr Dorinda ‘t Hart from the School of Population and Global Health at UWA. Dorinda has a background in sociology originally, with her PhD focussing on post-abortion narratives of women who had an abortion in Western Australia since 1998 when abortions were fully legalised in the state. Dorinda talks us through her PhD research and covers many...

In this next episode in our series on women’s health we sit down for a conversation with global health expert A/Prof Tim Roberton from the School of Population and Global Health at UWA. Tim’s discusses his interesting pathway into public and global health, from working for international aid organisations in the middle east and the Caucasus in the old Soviet region, to doing his doctorate at Johns...