Bamini Gopinath is an epidemiologist by training and is the inaugural Cochlear Chair in Hearing and Health at Macquarie University. She currently leads the Public Health and Policy Pillar at Macquarie University Hearing, which aims to transform the way in which clinical care is delivered to adults with vision and hearing loss. Her ongoing research in the public health field aims to translate key research findings into health policy and practice, by targeting current gaps that exist in Australian health care. She has co-authored 81 peer-reviewed papers in the last 5 years (from a career total of 269 papers). She has an h-index of 50 and her work has been cited over 9,500 times. Her international standing is evidenced through her contribution to 44 research topics – 29 of them in the top 10% of topics by prominence i.e. are likely to be well funded topics (SciVal). She has also delivered 30 national and 25 international invited speaker presentations in the last 5 years. 

Bamini’s epidemiological and translation research program builds and applies high-quality research evidence to address the risk factors and impacts of vision and/or hearing loss. Her analyses of large population-based datasets led to new research evidence that contributed to designing social and medical interventions for healthy ageing nationally/globally; and highlights the adverse impacts of sensory loss on: quality of life; mental health; and functional status. For example, funding that she acquired as principal investigator, led to an evidence-based program to improve dietary behaviours of patients with macular degeneration (leading cause of vision loss) through a novel telephone-coaching program. Additional funding that she acquired, also led to a mail-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy aiming to minimise burden in caregivers of relatives with age-related macular degeneration. Currently, she is leading data-driven projects to provide ‘gold standard’ evidence on vision and/or hearing loss.

The clear association between population aging, sensory loss, cognitive, social, emotional and physical decline; and associated disability cannot be ignored. With greater understanding and knowledge of methods and concepts from the humanities and social sciences, a multi-faceted approach to interventions that includes holistic assessment and management of adults with sensory loss, can be implemented. The HIAS Fellowship via significant new collaborations and academic interactions in Hamburg, would help to achieve this by expanding the interdisciplinarity of Bamini’s current research program; and by building an internationally competitive research team with a focus on the socio-psychological-cultural risk factors and consequences of sensory loss. Therefore, this Fellowship will help establish new perspectives or ways of thinking, and integrate aspects of psychological, social and humanities approaches into sensory loss research. It is this combination of cognitive resources from individuals belonging to different disciplines, and the resulting new knowledge that is needed to tackle a complex condition such as sensory loss, that would not be adequately conceptualised within any of the involved discipline alone. Consequently, this research project will help inform public health approaches that explicitly target psychosocial factors and exploit deep knowledge of cultural factors and social dynamic in the design of effective interventions, for adults with sensory loss.  

Gopinath’s tandem partner is Juliane Degner, Professor of Social Psychology at Universität Hamburg. 

Gopinath’s fellowship is funded by the Joachim Herz Foundation.