Poche Research Updates, Part 1

Seminar Overview

This seminar will highlight advancements and innovative approaches in Indigenous health research, featuring presentations from three of our researchers. Our researchers will share their latest findings and insights, providing an overview of their research.

Dr. Saira Sanjida, Research Fellow, will present on the RAUGH Data Linkage Project, a first-time research initiative in Australia. Dr. Penny Haora, Research Fellow, will discuss Indigenous, place-based, and community collectives for maternal and newborn care, focusing on health and wellbeing leadership and systems change. 

Speakers

Dr Saira Sanjida is a Research Fellow in the Research Alliance for Urban Goori Health (RAUGH) team at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. She has an academic background in pharmacy and public health. Before joining the UQ Poche Centre, she worked at the Centre for Health Service Research and Dermatology Research Centre. She has research collaborations with the Psycho-oncology Co-operative Research Group and Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer. Saira’s main research interests are mental health, psycho-oncology, cancer survivorship, health system and evaluation. She has been involved with quantitative and qualitative analysis of different clinical trials and epidemiological research projects on mental health, early detection and treatment of cancer, health service outcomes, and cancer survivorship cares. As a team member of RAUGH, her current research focus is to close the gap in life expectancy and achieve health equality for urban First Peoples in greater North Brisbane through applied research in priority areas in healthcare pathways - across the continuum of care and the lifespan.

Dr Penny Haora (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Māhanga) researches innovations and system transformation for better maternity care with a focus on First Nations families. She uses qualitative, mixed methods, community-based participatory, and realist approaches. As a First Nations Maori researcher, Penny is learning Kaupapa Maori and Indigenist research approaches and works to see the revaluing of Indigenous knowledges and science. The overall aim of her research is to support healthy families through better births. She does this by conducting and facilitating research that places the lived experiences of mums and bubs, families and community front and centre. Penny aims for her work to incentivise action to address entrenched inequities in maternity care, such as care quality/safety (including cultural safety) and access. She has worked in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community organisations, internationally with remote communities and in post-conflict settings with local and international non-government organisations, and within diverse organisational contexts. Penny is leading projects with a view to better understanding and evaluating First Nations-led maternity and family care and wellbeing. From 2019 to 2022, she managed the Building on Our Strengths (BOOSt) project based on the beautiful Lands of the Yuin Nation (NSW) embedded with Waminda South Coast Aboriginal Women’s Health and Wellbeing Organisation. Penny completed a Doctor of Philosophy in 2013 enrolled at the ANU working on a project based in Thailand. Her Master of Public Health research was undertaken in Rasuwa District, Nepal, and she has around six years of experience working in research/evaluation/management and clinical roles in Thailand, Nepal, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Papua New Guinea.

Seminar recording