Good Will Hunters

The final episode in our latest series of Good Will Hunters has just aired! 🎙️ This 8th episode focuses on SDG3.9 – reducing deaths and illnesses caused by hazardous air, water, and soil pollution. I was joined by three incredible guests - Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska, Dr Bronwyn King AO, and Anna-Maria Arabia. We explored the stark reality that Australians spend 90% of their time indoors, yet we have no mandated standards for indoor air quality. Meanwhile, other countries are doing better—and some much worse. Our conversation highlighted why SDG3.9 is about safeguarding global health for generations to come. This episode also marks the end of this series. I'll share a series wrap-up shortly, once I have had a chance to re-listen to each episode myself! Thank you for listening and being part of the conversation. I hope this series has in some small way helped catalyse progress on SDG3. #GoodWillHunters #SDG3 #AirQuality #GlobalHealth #Sustainability

The 7th - and second-last - episode in our latest series of Good Will Hunters has just aired, with Australia's Ambassador for Global Health, Dr Lucas de Toca PSM. We discussed SDG3.8 which targets universal health coverage including financial risk protection and access to quality essential health care services, vaccines and medicines, for all people, everywhere. It's the target which encompasses all of the other targets - and it is perhaps the most difficult to attain. To me the idea of universal health coverage, in practice, feels quite utopian and yet it is a target we must, must work towards. In this episode, we unpack the Ambassador's work to support the achievement of universal health coverage in the Indo-Pacific. We speak about how stretched the health workforce is in our region, why Australia has shifted to a greater investment in primary health care since Covid-19, why financing health is so difficult for so many countries, and how Australia can leverage our immense domestic health expertise to better support the region. Regular listeners would know the latter has been a recurrent theme in every episode of this series!

The latest episode in our new series of Good Will Hunters has just aired, on SDG3.7 which relates to sexual and reproductive health. In this episode, I get to speak with the incredible team from the Elimination Partnership in the Indo-Pacific for Cervical Cancer (EPICC), including Professor Karen Canfell AC FAHMS and Professor Deborah Bateson AM, along with doctors and nurses including Dr Boniface Damutalau, Dr Joao Teodosio Amaral, Dr Paulus Ripa, and Gloria Munnull. Cervical cancer is a disease of inequity. It is the 4th most common cancer, and also the 4th leading cause of cancer death among women globally. Thankfully, we now have the knowledge, tools and global strategy to eliminate this preventable disease, as you'll hear in the episode.

Episode 5 in our latest series of Good Will Hunters has just aired! This week, we're talking about SDG3.6, which aims to reduce the burden of death and injuries from road traffic accidents. 🚘 I'm thrilled to feature Rob McInerney, CEO of iRAP. Of all the episodes in this series, this one surprised me the most. The work iRAP is doing to create a world free from high risk roads is essential to reducing the toll that road-related trauma places on health systems and households worldwide. I hope you can tune in - it will change the way you think about roads!

Episode 4 in the new series of Good Will Hunters has just aired, featuring Dr Rosemary Wyber, on the topic of Rheumatic Heart Disease. SDG3.4 focuses on reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases, which includes heart diseases, stroke, cancer, lung disease and more. We couldn't do justice to them all in a single episode, so I've chosen to focus on heart diseases and Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) more specifically. Rosemary's doctoral research focused on RHD in Australia and internationally, and she was the lead author of the RHD Endgame Strategy to eliminate RHD in Australia. Her postdoctoral research continues to address RHD and broader heart health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She also contributes to research on broader primary care delivery and socioeconomic determinants of health. This episode was a great reminder of the importance of cultural sensitivity in health settings - a theme which has woven through the whole series! Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. 🎙

I am delighted to share the third episode in our new series of Good Will Hunters on SDG3. In this episode, I speak to Prof Brendan Crabb AC, Director and CEO of the Burnet Institute. We speak about SDG3.3 which relates to ending epidemics of infectious diseases, including AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases. We also speak about Covid-19 and the extraordinary impact it had on SDG3. As well as being Director and CEO of Burnet, Brendan is President of both the Australian Global Health Alliance and Pacific Friends of Global Health, bodies that advocate for better health equity. We speak about Australia’s contribution to the region, and particularly the potential to leverage even more of our immense domestic health research capability. I’ve listened to this episode a few times already, and discovered a new pearl of wisdom each time. I hope you love it too! 

It’s International Podcast Day and we’re doing a plug for Good Will Hunters, Australia’s leading aid and development podcast. We've recorded some great conversations with host Rachel Nunn over the past few years, but there are more than 150 episodes on a range of development issues worth checking out. Have a listen and let us know your favourite podcast below: https://lnkd.in/dWnREmt Our pick: The Winter Series 2021 in which former AWP CEO (now eWater Group CEO) Michael Wilson and Rosie Wheen interviewed the likes of Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd, Mina Guli and more! #InternationalPodcastDay