Project at HIAS

The clear association between population aging, sensory loss, cognitive, social, emotional and physical decline as well as 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. Bamini Gopinath’s HIAS Fellowship via significant new collaborations and academic interactions in Hamburg, would help to achieve this by expanding the interdisciplinarity of her 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. 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 the University of Hamburg.

Biography

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 five years (from a career total of 269 papers) and has been cited over 9,500 times.

Gopinath’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. It highlights the adverse impacts of sensory loss on the quality of life, mental health and functional status. Among other things, she worked on an evidence-based program designed to improve the dietary habits of patients with macular degeneration (the leading cause of vision loss) through an innovative telephone coaching program.

Gopinath’s HIAS Fellowship was funded by the Joachim Herz Foundation.