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Establishing consumer panels

The key role of Panel members at The Institute is to offer health consumer perspectives and lived experiences within the context of their respective the Institutes research programs. This provides consumers the opportunity to contribute to current and future research activities. Consumer panel members may also assist in identifying the gaps, barriers, strengths, and opportunities for improvement in Consumer and Community Involvement (CCI) within the research program. The George Institute for Global Health currently has three consumer panels: Brain Health, Cardiovascular Health, and Kidney Health. Role of consumer panel While each consumer panel has established its own processes, Panel member’s involvement includes: Input into grant applications and research proposals Providing advice and feedback on study design, patient-centred outcomes, and patient-facing materials Assisting with the communication and sharing

Consumer and Community Involvement in health research projects

What is Consumer and Community Involvement in health research? Consumer and community involvement in health research is about ensuring that consumers and community members have a say in the research conducted and that the research best supports consumer and community needs and interests. Consumers and researchers work together to provide the best value for, and have the greatest impact on, the wider community. Consumers can be involved from the very beginning such as forming questions and co-designing studies with researchers, and throughout all stages of the research process. What does it look like? Consumers can be involved at any stage of the research cycle shown below. The level of involvement will vary depending on the consumer’s role and the type of research study. STAGE 1 - DECIDING WHAT TO RESEARCH Consumers can help identify and prioritise research questions. Examples include:   participating in and sharing ideas at relevant consumer/c

Register your interest in becoming a part of our Consumer and Community Network

We welcome you to express your interest in the Institute’s Consumer and Community Network. Please complete the following secure form and a member of our team will contact you to discuss further.

Dr Mary-Anne Land

Profile

Dr Land is a Senior Program Manager at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads global initiatives to transition the world’s salt supply to potassium-enriched alternatives. This work addresses the urgent global challenge of high sodium intake and its associated health risks, advancing innovative strategies to improve cardiovascular health worldwide.

Prior to her current role, Dr Land held several key positions at the World Health Organization. Including playing a crucial role in the development and implementation of the highly successful global cervical cancer elimination program. Her leadership and strategic expertise were instrumental in advancing the initiative forward, securing essential support and securing commitments for its implementation.

With a robust background in both hands-on program implementation and high-level advisory roles, Dr Land continues to shape and advance global health policies and practices.

Thomas Gadsden

Profile

Dr Thomas Gadsden is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Systems Science, The George Institute for Global Health, and a Conjoint Lecturer at UNSW Sydney. 

His research focuses on health systems strengthening, with expertise in discrete choice experiments, evidence synthesis, and evaluation. His PhD research examined the design of appropriate incentives for community health workers in Indonesia.

Tom has held diverse roles across the health sector, including as a Public Health Officer Trainee at the NSW Ministry of Health, Health Financing Officer for the WHO Country Office in Lao PDR, and Australian Youth Ambassador for Development. He also worked as a youth worker in remote Aboriginal communities. 

Tom has a strong track record of partnering with government stakeholders and has authored commissioned reports and policy briefs for Australian government agencies and the World Health Organization.

Vikneswary Batumalai

Profile

Dr Vikneswary (Vicky) Batumalai is a Senior Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney. With a background in clinical radiation therapy, she brings a deep understanding of the challenges faced by people diagnosed with cancer, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Vicky's research is driven by a strong commitment to improving equity across the cancer care continuum. Her work focuses on identifying and addressing disparities in access, quality, and outcomes of cancer care, both in Australia and internationally. Her work aims to inform policy and drive sustainable, system-wide change.

Dr Surekha Garimella

Profile

Surekha Garimella is a Senior Research Fellow at the George Institute, working on the ARISE Hub – a project aimed at strengthening accountability mechanisms for improving equitable health and well-being for people living and working in informal urban spaces. Surekha holds a Bachelor's degree in Nutrition, a Master of Science in Nutrition & Food science, a Master of Philosophy in Applied economics, and a PhD in Public Health, Gender and Work.

Her research interests are in gender, women, work and political economy; Gendered health systems and accountability; feminist theory and practice and ethics of research practice. She has worked in implementation and research in gender, nutrition, health and wellbeing among women, children and adolescents in informal urban settlements in Delhi and Tamil Nadu as well as researched on the health and wellbeing experiences of women workers in urban informal settlements in Delhi.

Inayat Singh Kakar

Profile

Inayat Singh Kakar is a qualitative researcher and public health practitioner with an inter-disciplinary background. She holds a bachelor's degree in Law and a Master of Social Degree in Public Health. She has worked previously on research projects involving communities and advocacy with the government on maternal health, rights of childbearing women, patients’ rights, regulation of the private healthcare sector, non-communicable diseases and access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her research interests include maternal health, health systems governance, and social and political determinants of health. She is a member of rights-based people's groups and alliances in India such as the People's Health Movement India and the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood India.

Prof Jason Wu

Profile

With a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and MSc in Biostatistics, Jason received post-doctoral training in nutrition epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a Professor and the Head of the Nutrition Science Program at the George Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales. His research and teaching focuses on reducing diet-related diseases through implementing innovative ‘Food is Medicine’ interventions, modelling the impact of population-level food policies, and determining the role of dietary factors for cardiometabolic diseases prevention and treatment. Jason's research has been published in top medical and nutrition journals including Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, BMJ, Circulation, and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He has over 150 publications and has received many highly competitive awards, fellowships and grants, with total research funding of more than $14million to date.

Dr Xia Wang

Profile

Dr Xia Wang is a Doctoral Research Fellow at The George Institute who specialises in analyses of large-scale randomised controlled trials and conducting epidemiological study. She has a Master of Medicine in Epidemiology and Statistics from the Peking Union Medical college.

Prior to joining The George Institute, Xia worked at Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention where she was involved in national HIV drug resistance surveillance and national epidemiological studies.

Professor Robyn Norton AO

Profile

Professor Norton is one of the two Founding Directors of The George Institute for Global Health. She has published widely on women’s health, global health, and injury.

Robyn has had a long-standing commitment to improving the health of women and girls and co-established The George Institute’s Global Women’s Health Program. This program of work takes a life course approach to addressing the leading causes of death and disability for women and girls, especially non-communicable diseases, and injuries.

Robyn currently co-leads work in both Australia and the UK focused on the development of policies to ensure increased representation of women and girls as participants in health and medical research, and the disaggregation of data by sex and gender. This work led to the establishment of Australia’s first Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine in March 2024, in partnership with the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW and Deakin University.

Robyn was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2016 and made an Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2017. In 2021, she was appointed as a member of Chief Executive Women and, in 2022, was appointed to the Australian Women’s Health Advisory Council where she is also a member of its research sub-committee.

In 2024, Robyn was appointed Chair of the inaugural Advisory Board for Franklin Women, an Australian social enterprise that connects individuals and organisations committed to creating a health and medical research sector where women thrive. She is also Chair of the inaugural Advisory Board of Imperial College’s Network of Excellence in Women’s Health and in 2024, joined the board of directors of the Black Dog Institute, UNSW Sydney.

Assoc. Prof Julieann Coombes

Profile

Dr Julieann Coombes identifies as a Gumbaynggir woman and highly skilled career professional with over 27 years nursing experience working in Aboriginal Community Health. She now focuses on improving health inequalities and outcomes for First Nations people and communities through research using Indigenous Knowledges (knowing, being and doing) and methodologies which empowers First Nations people’s voices in all her work. She has extensive experience in social and cultural determinants of health research, Indigenous methodologies and applies decolonising methods to all her research projects. Julieann has a commitment to ensure that all research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is conducted in an ethical correct way and research integrity should be underpinned by equity, transparency, and self-determination.

Her work in Indigenous research methods, public health knowledge and qualitative research, work which is published, has been cited in policy, media, and academic publications.

Julieann received her PhD at University of Technology, Sydney and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health.