The Public Health SPOTlight Podcast: stories, inspiration, and guidance to build your dream public health career
The Public Health SPOTlight Podcast: stories, inspiration, and guidance to build your dream public health career
Grassroots to global, the evolution of a Public Health professional, with Glenn Laverack
In this episode, Sujani sits down with Glenn Laverack, a seasoned public health professional whose career has spanned continents and been shaped by his diverse experiences. His early years engaged with grassroots initiatives laid the foundation for a deep understanding of the local context, an asset that would become invaluable as he navigated the complex world of global health. They explore the significance of community empowerment in making a meaningful impact and touch upon the multifaceted nature of public health careers that are often characterized by an ongoing process of learning, adapting, and seizing opportunities explore the significance of community empowerment in making a meaningful impact. This episode not only serves as a compass for those looking to forge a career in global health but also highlights the collective mission of improving community health and shaping policy.
You’ll Learn
- Glenn’s first experience volunteering in Sri Lanka and how that has led to a lifelong passion and a career in international health
- The lifestyle choices inherent in a global career that demands international mobility and the enriching experiences it can offer
- Having direct experience in field work and using your assets to provide a competitive edge in the public health field
- Factors to consider when thinking about continuing postgraduate studies
- Empowering communities to have more voice and authority about projects that will influence their lives
- Understanding what it is you want to achieve in public health to figure out how you can make the most impact
- The pivotal role that personal connections and networking play in professional development
Today’s Guest
Dr. Glenn Laverack is a social scientist and an international leader in health promotion and empowerment with a distinguished career for 40 years as a practitioner, an academic, researcher and consultant in more than 50 countries. Dr Laverack has been an advocate for the value of ordinary people at the centre of health promotion and has developed several innovative solutions to co-create successful programs in different cultural contexts. He formerly worked as a Coordinator (Empowerment) in neglected tropical diseases at WHO, Geneva and as a research fellow at Flinders University, Australia. Dr Laverack has managed several large-scale health programs including in Ghana and India and worked as a consultant on more than 100 contracts worldwide. He has a wide range of publications including 26 books, 12 in English and 14 in other languages including in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, Farsi, Italian, Chinese and Thai. Dr Laverack has been a visiting professor at 6 universities in Denmark, Italy, the UAE and the UK and was the Director of Health Promotion, University of Auckland, New Zealand. His PhD investigated the collaborative role of communities in health promotion programs in Fiji and is presently an independent adviser with the UN, governmental and international development agencies.
Resources
- Connect with Glenn on LinkedIn and find his work on ResearchGate
- Learn more about Glenn’s book, ”Health Promotion Practice: Power and Empowerment”
- Learn more about Global Health Mentorships
Join The Public Health Career Club: the #1 hangout spot and community dedicated to building and growing your dream public health career.
I think that's a good question for people to ask themselves. That's what their goal is. Is to really go forward and make a difference is to ask themselves is what I'm doing at this time? Is it going to lead to making a difference for other people? Because it's not too difficult to make a contribution, but it's very difficult to make a difference.
Speaker 2:Welcome to PH Spotlight, a community for you to build your public health career with. Join us weekly right here, and I'll be here too. Your host, sujani Siva from PH Spot. Hi, glenn, and welcome to the PH Spot podcast. So lovely to finally meet you after kind of, you know, stumbling on your LinkedIn profile, and I'm really happy you are doing this today.
Speaker 1:Me too. Yeah, really nice to be here and really appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 2:So you know, I know you have a long, long, long history with public health and one of the questions I love hearing the answer to is kind of how people have found public health as a career. And so I'm curious to hear from you, like, having built a 30 year career, can you remember and go back to that point in time? Maybe you actually discovered public health and kind of identified it as a potential career path for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it was almost by default, because my undergraduate degree was essentially in public health. It was a four year degree call it a four year sandwich which the third year is a full year in practice. You know, working for a local in my case, working for a local authority in London but when I was looking to do an undergraduate degree, I was looking at different options. I was more interested, I think, at that time, in the environment actually, and I was looking for different courses. I applied for different courses and then I saw, you know, this course online at Leeds University in the UK and I applied and you know was successful.
Speaker 1:I was successful with others, but at that time then, having read more about what public health was and what it meant and just you know a wide variety of opportunities it offered, I decided to do that course. So it wasn't that I planned it in advance, it was just probably like a lot of people, when they start looking at different courses, they start seeing new things, you know yeah, so this was in the late 1970s, early 80s and so that's right yeah when you're doing this degree, what did you imagine your public health career to look like?
Speaker 1:well, at that time that course was specifically designed to become a sort of public health inspector, so it was a vocational course. So the idea was you did that course and at the end of it you got a job with a local authority, you know, and that actually evolved into what is now called environmental health, environmental health officers, but at that time it was very much public health. So the idea was I would do the course, which I did, and then I did work for just under a year at a local authority in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1:So that was, you know really what my idea was. But then somebody mentioned to me voluntary services overseas, which is a bit like the American Peace Corps, and I apply and I made some inquiries and I actually put in an application for that and that that's really got, because my whole career from that point on, for the last 35 years or so, has been in international public health. And so I think what really triggered me, if you like, was my time I spent as a volunteer, which ended up being in Sri Lanka living in a rural area for almost two years, you know, without electricity, without running water. Basically, in those days it was living on $2 a day. Your salary was about $60 a month, you know. So you really had to live like locals, lived, had to learn to speak Sinhala, because you know the village spoke English well enough to communicate with.
Speaker 2:So I think it was that experience, that really grassroots experience, that triggered me, triggered my whole career from that point on to working and living in low middle income countries, essentially because then from then on, you essentially built a career moving around different communities and it looks like you wrapped up that work, for you know that you did for two years in Sri Lanka and you went back to get a master's degree and I suppose that was quite intentional, right, you're seeing this pathway.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing leads to another really, and I think I applied for a scholarship from the British government to do a master's degree and you know it's not easy getting scholarships even then I mean, it's probably harder now to get scholarships to do a master's degree but having I knew that, having two years experience under my belt, and this is why I always advise to young professionals get some good experience early in your career. Young professionals, get some good experience early in your career. In a way that's really going to determine the the professional you're going to develop into in the future. You know, because I've been in many meetings, you know, with high level meetings, with people at the world bank and us, different un organizations, and people really don't have any idea about how, you know, poor people in low and middle income countries live. They have no idea and yet they're sat there, you know, trying to develop policies for those people. So I always say the best experience you can get is firsthand experience at the grassroots level, whether it's for three months, six months or, like in my case, nearly two years.
Speaker 1:It really will pay dividends for the future and it paid dividends for me because I'm sure my two years experience is what stood out in my application when I applied for a master's degree and I was successful in getting onto a master's course to study health promotion at master's. That master's was also then linked to a period of one year as a trainee with British government, which I went to Ghana to do. So I got another year's experience out of it. But none of that would have happened had I not first made that commitment. I made that sacrifice, if you like, because there was no salary involved for two years and it's very hard living under those conditions. But that really led on to other things.
Speaker 2:You know, and this has always been my experience in in my career if you're willing to go that little bit extra, go that extra mile, you know it often pays dividends in the future yeah, and just thinking about you know, and I know you're a professor and come across lots of students and early career professionals there's that pressure that early professionals put on themselves to kind of like get it right or get it perfect right out of school. And I wonder, you know, just reflecting on your own career, like advice for those folks who are very early in their career and I think you mentioned a little bit on that just to get as much experience as you can and not put so much pressure on yourself to figure out that perfect path that you're working towards right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I mean, I think the general advice is generalize and then specialize, you know, in public health, which is good advice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so in your case you kind of went into this, the world of international work, and then would you say, even during your master's you were quite general.
Speaker 1:I've been always being general and I would never put my career forward as a model for a career path, because a lot of overseas work is contractual. So I've, you know, I've done a lot of contracts in my career probably over 100 contracts, I think and when you are in that position you sort of stagger from one contract to the next, you know. So I went from Sri Lanka to Ghana and then from Ghana to India, for example, you know, one contract to another. So much of my career has never been planned Because I've worked a lot in many different countries. I wouldn't say I've specialized. In terms of.
Speaker 1:You know, my advice would be, you know, to plan early and to think long, obviously to think strategically, because I meet a lot of young career people, public health professionals, and I'm always so impressed with them because they're very savvy, as you say.
Speaker 1:And I'm always so impressed with them because they're very savvy, as you say, often they've got some experience and well qualified and very motivated, you know. So to me the field of public health now is more competitive in terms of developing a career than it's ever been. You know, from the young people I meet At an early start they're very professionally minded, which I never was really. I was just more interested in trying to get overseas and have different experiences, professional experiences in different countries. I wasn't very strategic about it at an early stage in my career, but I think had I been more strategic and I thought about which region I wanted to work in in the world and therefore thought about which languages I needed, for example, or which countries I needed to get experience in in that region, maybe I would have been able to advance my career quicker, you know.
Speaker 2:How much do you think one should be strategic versus lead with curiosity and explore? I?
Speaker 1:think early in your career, be curious, you know, get out there and just get that experience and try to get a variety of experience under your belt on your CV Because myself, having looked through hundreds of CVs for recruiting people in different projects, different jobs, often you know, for recruiting people in different projects, different jobs, often you know people that all meet the criteria for the job you know and have the same level of qualification. And master's say you're always looking for something different. You know you're looking for someone that stands out and, as I say, it's a very competitive market so it's difficult often to find someone that stands out. So if you've got that little bit of extra experience say you know, three months in India or three months in Nepal, if you're thinking of working in South Asia, that's going to stand out on your CV and when you're up against other people with a master's degree like you have, you know it just gives you that little bit of an edge.
Speaker 1:I always say to early career people use your assets, you know it just gives you that little bit of an edge. I always say to early career people use your assets, you know, use your assets. And I'm always surprised at how many people say well, I'm not really comfortable in doing that. I mean, for example, if you are a woman and you're from an Asian background, for example from a Muslim background, and you've got some cultural experience from your family and you've got language experience, why not use that, you know, to try and seek work, to get experience where your assets are going to be useful working with, let's say, women in reproductive health, in the south asian context or in a muslim context. I always say to people look at what assets you've got and try to build on them, build on your strengths, rather than going out and trying to find something brand new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's really good advice. So I guess you complete your master's right at the beginning of the 90s and you get some additional experience in Ghana. And then you mentioned you found yourself in India doing some work there. Was that part of your program as well, or is that something that you kind of intentionally sought out?
Speaker 1:Absolutely not. No, having, you know, done four years or so in Ghana, working in a rural context, in Kumasi, you know, doing a health promotion project. I was then found myself jobless, you know, because it was a contract. So then I started looking for other contracts and I saw another contract that come up in India with the British Council managing a school health project in Andhra Pradesh, which is a state in the south of the country. So I applied and, you know, went through the normal recruiting process and was successful. So then went to India for two years on that project, which was in itself a very interesting experience professionally to live and work in India after having been in Africa, west Africa for four years or so.
Speaker 2:You know, I think right after this you decided to then pursue a doctoral degree and I'm curious how you assess the need for further education and and kind of the thinking that goes behind, kind of deciding, okay, I think it's time for me to go and upskill, or whether it's a formal degree or certification.
Speaker 1:I wonder how you think about that yeah, well, in truth it was partly because I was burnt out professionally after four years in West Africa and two years in India, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was a. These were project management positions, managing big projects. So you know, I had a wonderful suntan but terrible bags, bags under my eyes and I just felt it was time for a change. And also, particularly having been in India for two years, I just found that the local people there the biggest resource for any country obviously is the human resource, and I just found that the capacity of local people, local professionals I was working with in India know far better than some of the expatriates I was working with, and I thought this can't be right. Why are we delivering programs, projects, in a top-down way where everything is decided by, planned by and delivered largely by expatriates, you know? Why aren't we using more, not only community perspectives, but using more local professional capacities? And so I thought, well, I'd like to do a PhD around that subject, because I knew at that time, as well, as I said earlier to you, you know, you get to a certain level in your career, which is about a master's degree level, with, let's say, 10, 15 years or so experience under your belt, and you're just one of very many people. You know there are very many people, professionals like that, and I think it's always important to invest in yourself, you are your biggest asset professionally. And I thought, well, look, I need to get ahead to specialize, to do some research on an area that I'm interested in, and to get ahead of the crowd, if you like, professionally, I need to do a master's. And that's when I started looking around to see where I could do a master's degree, because you know, it's not easy necessarily to get sponsorship, get a grant to do a PhD. It's not easy. So I started looking and again, fortunately and I think this is another piece of advice I would give people is that for me. I mean looking back on my career. You know, one of the key points that has helped me has been people. I've met, individuals that I've met that have helped me to step up in my career, given me an opportunity to work or giving, in this case, given me an opportunity to do a master's degree. So I've met that have helped me to step up in my career, given me an opportunity to work or giving, in this case, given me an opportunity to do a master's degree.
Speaker 1:So I'd been presenting my work in India at a conference in Japan, and a guy came up to me and said look, would you like to have a cup of coffee and we'll have a chat about the work. It's really interesting. So we had a coffee and he actually was from Australia, a professor, and he said said, look, we'd love to have somebody like you at our university to do a PhD. You'll have to apply, obviously, you know, through the normal process, the competitive process, and you know we'll see what happens. So I did and they did offer me a place to do a PhD, but they couldn't offer me a grant, which is obviously a big thing.
Speaker 1:You, you know, if you're going to move yourself to Australia from India at that time it's a big expense, you know to do it. But again in my career, I thought, well, look, you know, to get ahead, I've got to take that extra step, I've got to go those extra miles. I'll make the commitment of going to Australia and maybe I'll be able to find some work or something you know. So that's what I did and, as by chance, I was offered a lot of work, marking papers and doing the sort of bread and butter stuff that academics hate to do.
Speaker 1:And that kept me going for about the first six months and then I managed to get a department grant, just from the department, not from the faculty, but just from the department and that was enough basically to help me survive.
Speaker 1:That's probably why I did my PhD in exactly three years to the day, because, you know, you get a four year visa to do a PhD normally, but I did mine in three years because I didn't really have much money and at that time we'd just had our first baby. So it was a very active time. You know, three years doing a PhD and having a child as well. But looking back, it was definitely the right decision because that PhD, doing a PhD, was absolutely pivotal point in my career. It just lifted me above and pushed me forward, you know, in a specialist area, to create an area for myself and a bit of a name for myself in the field. I'm not suggesting that everybody does a PhD it's not for everybody, obviously but depending on what you want, your strategic plan, what you want to do, what you aim to do in public health, for me that was the right decision at that time.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like, by this point, you are making strategic decisions about the next steps of your career?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no definitely yeah, at that point, you're committing to do a PhD for three years where you know you're not going to have any money is a big commitment, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Three years out of your career, out of earning, you know, out of your potential to earn to begin with, you know. So it is a big commitment to do a PhD and three years is the shortest time possible. A lot of people take longer than that. You know much longer than that if they do it part time. So at that time, yes, I was being much more strategic about where I wanted to go. I guess, you know, at that time, before I did my PhD, I've been thinking for some time, and I think this is a question that really all professionals should ask themselves. But you know, how can I make a difference is something I've always asked myself during my career. I mean, we all make a contribution, right, in whatever job we're in, either working nationally or internationally. We all make a contribution through our work.
Speaker 1:But I really wanted to try to make a difference in public health. That was why I got involved. Really, what you know, my real interest was to make a difference to the lives of others, to improve their lives uh, poor people, you know, people that were disadvantaged or powerless and also to make a difference to their health as well. You know, because we know health is not really about health as such. It's about a whole range of other determinants.
Speaker 1:You know that we try to influence through public health, different strategies in public health, so I think that's a good question for people to ask themselves If that's what their goal is, is to really go forward and make a difference is to ask themselves fairly regularly, you know every six months or every year is what I'm doing at this time? Is it going to lead to making a difference? You know every six months, every year is what I'm doing at this time? Is it going to lead to making a difference? You know, for other people, because it's not difficult, too difficult to make a contribution, but it's very difficult to make a difference, I think.
Speaker 2:Did you feel like you knew exactly how you were going to do that upon completing your PhD?
Speaker 1:Not how, so much as, but what I wanted to do. My idea was at that time. It seems, when I talk about it now and remember this was back in the mid nineties, so we're talking what 30 years ago about. I was passionate about empowerment in public health, giving people more of a voice not just a voice, but giving everyday people communities, you know, more of a voice, not just a voice, but giving everyday people communities, you know, more of an input, more input into decision making about projects and programs and policies that influence their life, because I now we call it co-production and community engagement and the co-creation. So now it's actually, at this moment, a very popular part, or a very, you know, inhibited part, of public health. But back then, you know, I would go to conferences and I would be the only person in the room with my hand up asking questions, like you know well, how are you going to involve the community in this decision-making process? People just did not think about it. It was all very top down, and so my goal was to try and give people more of a voice in public health, try and get people more involved with co-creation, co-production, you know, through engaging with them and working with them. That was what I wanted to do, how I was going to achieve that. My strategy to achieve that developed a little bit later, but at that time, to be honest, I was just totally focused on trying to wake up every morning and do a day's work towards my PhD. You know that was the sort of key goal.
Speaker 1:But later I started to think more carefully about, well, how exactly am I going to make a difference? Because, I mean, public health is very complex, isn't it? And very broad, and, to be honest, there's a place for everything in public health. And I think that's part of the challenge to young and mid-term professionals is to identify, a bit like water, identify what your level is, where you feel you can make a difference, where you feel you are most comfortable in working in public health, because there's so many different levels. I've worked at many levels in public health, you know, from senior management positions in the united nations right down to being, you know, a lowly paid volunteer and many things in between. So you meet certain types of people that fit more comfortably, you know, as a sort of peg into a round hole sort of thing, then other people that don't seem to fit very comfortably. That's one of the reasons why I think it's good to try and get generalized early and get some experience across the board, because you will find yourself as a professional where you feel most comfortable.
Speaker 1:Not everyone wants to get their hands dirty. Working for an NGO, you know, like International Red Cross or somebody or a small NGO out in the field, you know every day many people are not comfortable with that at all. They'd rather be in Washington or Geneva in a big meeting. You've got to find, depending on your personality and what your goals are if you want to be more effective, where you feel most comfortable within public health and it is broad and you know very broad sector. So there are many areas that you can work in, not just you know working, for example, in female genital cutting or working reproductive health or working in non-communicable diseases. These are the sectors that we often categorise public health, rightly or wrongly, but that's how we categorise them. But within those sectors, which level are you going to work at? You know which level do you feel most comfortable at? Working with the communities directly, or, you know, working with a local government or working with an NGO, or working in research, or working as a private contractor or working for the UN.
Speaker 2:There are many options in public health, but I think it pays early to get a feeling, get some experience of where you feel you might best fit into that and it seems like you kind of, you know, did a little bit of everything after your doctorate in Australia Seems like you went back into the field in Vietnam and spend a bit more time in the Asia region. You then came back to I guess it was in Australia. You came back to New. Zealand.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then spend some time in Switzerland and then back to Australia. So I noticed a little bit of a change in the type of work you were doing following your PhD yeah, well, that's because doing a PhD gave me more opportunities yeah you know, having that title of doctor and having a PhD specialist area gives you more opportunities.
Speaker 1:It doesn't give you more money, necessarily, but it gives you more work opportunities and, if that's what you want, and opportunities from which you can choose where you feel that you might have more of an influence. You know, for example. So when I went to Vietnam, as you mentioned, for a couple of years I was an advisor with UNICEF on health and across the board, really, really, of UNICEF activities, really to get some experience with the UN, because I hadn't, up to that point, had any real experience with the UN.
Speaker 1:And then I felt well, I'd like to go in to get a feel for what it's like in an academic context. So that's when I went to New Zealand to work as a professor and a researcher and also to give me an opportunity, because, having done my PhD in Australia, you know I really loved that region as well, the Pacific region. I wanted to get back into the Pacific, but I'd also worked for a year after my PhD. I had a year extra on my visa and I'd worked for a while in territory health with Aboriginal people in the north of Australia. So working in New Zealand gave me academic experience. It gave me easy access to the well in territory health with Aboriginal people in the north of Australia. So working in New Zealand gave me academic experience. It gave me easy access to the Pacific and it also meant I could go back to Australia where I worked with the Flying Doctors, for example, out of north Queensland, and work with the Central Land Council out of Alice Springs, for example, with Aboriginal people. You know it just allowed me to get a broader range of experience and an insight into the indigenous context as well, as well as being, you know, an academic. And that's where I had started before then and I also think this is a bit of good advice for professional people to try and leave a paper trail in your career. Leave a paper trail in your career.
Speaker 1:I've always done that in my career, right from early on in my career. You know writing papers and publishing papers. But after my PhD, when I was, you know, went to Vietnam and then when I went to New Zealand, that's when I really got interested in publishing books, because I realized that writing papers had a very limited readership and also a paper which is only you know, three, four thousand words or whatever, it doesn't give you much scope to express yourself. So then I published my first book. God, I can't remember when I published my first book. I think it was in about 2002, I think I think just after when I finished in Vietnam and I published my book based on my PhD, obviously, and I thought well, that's it, I've published my book based on my PhD, obviously, and I thought well, that's it. I published a book in English, you know, on empowerment. It was called Power and Empowerment in Health Promotion, something like that.
Speaker 1:I thought well, that was it you know, but as it turns out now, you know, I've published over 26 books now in 12 different languages and I found that to be one of the strategic ways I've tried to make a difference, All essentially on this concept of empowerment and power and public health or health promotion. But I found after a time, after I published two or three books in English, that many people in many different countries, although they can read English, speak English reasonably well they would like a book in their own language on that subject. So that led to a whole range of collaborations over the years you know, in French, in Arabic, in Spanish and Portuguese and Chinese, and you know a whole range of languages as a means of disseminating my ideas, disseminating my concepts, if you like, my approaches in public health and health promotion around empowerment and community engagement and co-production and these types of things.
Speaker 2:That was one of the ways, strategically, I decided to move forward I um, I realize there are several other places that you worked at, going from your time in New Zealand to today. There's also kind of a completely different topic I want to ask you about. But before we get into that, is there a way you can summarize, I guess, from when was that? 2009 to today, where your career has taken you the later part of your career?
Speaker 1:The later part of my career has really been dominated by my specialist choice, which was empowerment in the context of public health, so that, as I say, led to many opportunities for contracts to do short-term contracts, to work directly with governments, to present at conferences, to work with local authorities, to write papers, to write books. So really I think the latter, since that part, for the last 20 years, if you like, my work has been dominated by my specialist choice, because that's the area that I want to try and make a difference. Even today, even though I'm here in Latin America at the moment, I'm already thinking ahead through conferences and books and papers and stuff I've been asked to collaborate on from other people during the rest of this year and early next year, all around this subject. So I think that's why I say, once you do a phd or you can not necessarily do a phd, but if you publish a lot in a certain area and work with other researchers, for example, and other key authors, you will create a sort of niche, if you like, professional niche for yourself and then other people who are interested in that will contact you rather than you having to contact them. You know it sort of changes the perspective. That's how the people come to you. Really I'm lucky. Well, maybe partly luck and partly by um hard work.
Speaker 1:But you know, this whole concept of empowerment, of co-production, of community engagement hasn't gone away in public health. I was involved with the ebola outbreak in west africa. I was out there working as a across the three countries as a community engagement advisor and then with covid the pendulum has sort of swung, you know, away from that top-down behaviour change, epidemiological, biomedical stance and has swung now more towards co-production. Community engagement and empowerment is very much social determinants and empowerment is very much a part of that. Empowerment is very much a part of that.
Speaker 1:So my subject that I chose all those years ago as part of my PhD has continued and I think always will continue because it's a fundamental part of addressing inequalities, for example. But now it's, you know probably well. That's why for me there's as much work as ever. I could have picked a subject in my PhD you know from my PhD which was completely obscure and has never moved forward, but the writing was on the wall. You know, as I said when I was in India, public health, international public health, can't continue in this way because it's just not effective in how it's being implemented in a top down way, in a top-down way. So in the latter part of my career, yeah, it's been more dominated by my chosen area of specialization, as opposed to the first part of my career, which was more about generalization and just trying to network and just trying to get experience under my belt.
Speaker 2:And you know this might be a bit of a personal question, but you've moved around quite a bit in the past 30 years and you did mention that. I think when you were doing your PhD you were expecting a baby and just curious about how difficult or easy was it to be able to pick up and move every few years in pursuit of, you know, a public health career like the one that you've kind of built.
Speaker 1:Like many people that work in public health. Maybe it's more obvious for people that work, you know, for the big UN organizations, because they do move themselves part of their contracts every three years or so. You know they shift around countries. But with me as well, you know, in my line of work and other people I know, like myself, it's really a lifestyle choice. That's your expectation, you know. Living in Australia, living in New Zealand, living in Vietnam, living in Ghana, living in India, living in Geneva, you know, living in all these places with your family is a lifestyle choice. I guess it would be best to ask my kids really, because they're all now in their 20s. You know, late 20s it has benefits, I mean. You know we picked up New Zealand citizenship when I was there. So two of my kids are in New Zealand working and living, the two actually that were born in Australia. One was born in Darwin and the other one was born in Melbourne. So they've got a sort of affiliation, if you like, by birth, with that part of the world, as well as it being a great place to be for young people.
Speaker 1:My youngest daughter, you know, is also very, very much driven to be travelling and working overseas and is heading off soon to do a year of a degree in America. So I mean, I think it gets into your blood as well. That's the other thing. Once you start doing this work, once you start travelling and working honestly, it becomes a bit of an addiction. Even now, you know, later in my years, I can't stop traveling, I can't stop networking. I can't stop, you know, having new experiences. It's just part of your life really, and that's why I say you've got to find what suits you best early, if you can, early in your career. It's certainly not for everybody, because you have to make a lot of sacrifices moving around everybody, because you have to make a lot of sacrifices moving around the world. Uh, you have to make a lot of sacrifices, but for some people it's what they want. Maybe some of the people listening to this podcast will think, yeah, that's what I want to do too, you know yeah, I like how you put it.
Speaker 2:It's certainly a lifestyle choice that you make for yourself, yeah, yeah. The other topic I want to get into and we touched on it a little bit and we talked about it before we hit record and something that I'm very much a big advocate for is investing in your relationships and your network, starting yesterday, and it's something that you need to constantly do and not just doing it when you need something right. What's your take on investing in relationships and growing your professional network?
Speaker 1:No, it's absolutely essential. I mean, and we should consider these as long-term relationships. You know, I've been, I have professional relationships with people over 20, 30 years who I've been in touch with, you know, over that period and their careers have advanced and mine has advanced and then regressed, you know. So it's a lifestyle. It's like the Asians, particularly in the Southeast Asian perspective. You know, you have to meet people face-to-face and once you meet people face-to-face, you're meeting them. It's for a long-term relationship, professional relationship. It's 10, 20, 30 years. That's how they see it, you know, and even now, for me, this is why I'm in Latin America, I'm traveling around and building my network in Latin America because I want to work in this region more.
Speaker 1:Nothing beats face-to-face contact. People will assess you for who you are, you know. So always be honest and open with people and yeah, and that's the best way, I think, to build relationships but also investing yourself in terms of training, online courses, getting more experience, because essentially, you know, in public health, wherever you are in the world, we're addressing the same sort of problems. I mean, whether it's non-communicable diseases, obesity or mental health, or it's addiction, or it's infectious diseases, suggesting some of the social determinants of health around poverty or housing or early education, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:We are addressing in public health essentially the same issues. It's just that wherever you are in the world, you're addressing it from a particular context, a social, political, economic, historical context. And that's the challenge in public health because we're all drawing from the same portfolio, if you like, of models and strategies and tools that are available is how you take, you know, that selection and apply it in a particular context. That is going to lead to an effective intervention or project or program or policy. So that, to me, has always been the fascination, part of the fascination of my work is how we do that, this sort of so called art and science of public health, how we take the evidence not that we should look at the evidence solely, because that can be very limiting, but how we take what we have and build on that to do you know, effective strategies.
Speaker 2:I think that's where having a very strong and healthy professional relationship also comes in. You know, there the relationships that you build with people, they will be there to not only support you with career decisions but I think the way you explained it to be able to collaborate on projects, even if they're in a different region in the world. We're all kind of working with similar models and frameworks and going back to your region to be able to apply that and learn from each other. I think there's that benefit as well in the relationships that you establish.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think having some sort of a mentor is a good idea, early or mid-career.
Speaker 1:I mean I was involved in this. I don't know if you've heard of the Global Health Mentorship Scheme. It's available for all public health people. I mentored four people last year from different countries around the world over about a six-month period where we met on a regular basis online and the mentorship scheme gives the mentors, such as myself, a book and you go through that booklet and it builds about how to do a cv, how to do an interview, how to guide your career. You know it's a good option for early career people the Global Health Mentorship Scheme but that's because I'm committed to helping mentor people.
Speaker 1:But I think in your career, if you can find individuals who are well established in your field or the field that you want to progress in and have a good mutual working relationship, I think it's a very good way of advancing your career. The thing is is not many people available. That's the problem, because they're always super busy and they've always got other people asking them to help them with their careers or, you know, write a paper or to do research or whatever it is. But if you can identify mentors and it's done in a professional way, in the right way, I think you can advance your career too. And that's all about networking to find the right people, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, the big problem is knowing what you want to do. I think for a lot of people they don't quite know what to choose from and I always say follow your passion in public health. If you're passionate about a particular thing and you know that's what you want to do, it makes it a little bit easier because then you can start trolling the literature and identifying in the literature who's been publishing or working in your particular field and you can then link with them, you know, and then set up some sort of a meeting and maybe meet them in person ideally and then move forward from there. Certainly helped me in my career to link up with individuals as mentors for short-term periods or longer-term periods, but it has certainly helped me sort of skip a few of the barriers or, you know, to open a few doors. It hasn't been absolutely crucial for my career, but it certainly has helped a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thinking about the next phase of your public health career. Glenn, what are you most excited about and looking forward to?
Speaker 1:personally, I hope to be able to work in Latin America, because I've worked on all the other continents, you know, significant continents, and then I've worked in over 50 countries, but I haven't had much experience in Latin America.
Speaker 1:So for me professionally, to sort of complete the wheel, if you like the circle, I'd like to spend more time in this part of the world. But of course, you know, your history always catches up with you. And I've just finished a big contract with the Eastern Mediterranean office, you know, in the MRO, because of my association with the Middle East and having done a book in arabic and having worked there as a professor on and off for many years, and also as I, as I mentioned to you before, I have a personal interest in going back to sri lanka and setting up a project there. So I don't think I'll be able to spend all my time in this part of the world, but certainly I'd like to spend part of the year professionally in Latin America, now that I have some Spanish and it is a very interesting part of the world from a public health perspective.
Speaker 1:I think for public health professionals, you know, there's never been a better time to be developing a career in public health personally, because you know things like One Health and the pandemics we've had in recent years and preparedness for those pandemics, and things like obesity, which no country as far as I know has managed to turn the tide, and growing issues with mental health, particularly in, uh, adolescence and possibly to the internet, you know, non-communicable diseases, this whole issue around migration, which has probably been, you know, as much as it's ever been, not just in North America and Europe, but within countries in Latin America, within countries in Africa, for example, and that linked to issues around urban health, for example.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think this all makes it very exciting to be working in public health. There are a lot of opportunities and we really need a new model in public health for international public health, you know, because we haven't really addressed issues of migration or obesity, or pandemics or mental health. So we need to be thinking about public health, I think, in a different way. We also need to be thinking about it regionally differently, and I mean there's very little around Andean health. You know, in this context, in Latin America we need to develop more on Andean health, for example.
Speaker 1:You know, long term we really need to be thinking about having an organization at an international level which is well equipped, obviously, to deal with international health as well, to address all these sorts of issues, that is well equipped to do that so there's a lot to do international public health and that's why it's a good time to be coming into public health or to be in public health early or mid-term to decide which direction you know you want to take that's a good reflection to hear from you, especially since you've kind of been around in public health for almost, I think, over three decades.
Speaker 2:so it's good to hear that it's a good of been around in public health for almost, I think, over three decades, so it's good to hear that it's a good time to be in public health right now. Can we expect you in North America? I didn't hear you talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, possibly this is also interesting moving around the world, working around the world, that public health isn't always as well developed in some countries. I'm saying America, but in some countries, as you might feel, it might be like in Europe. For example, when I'm talking about public health in a holistic way, when we're looking at it from, you know, working with communities, looking at the determinants of health, you know all these sorts of issues.
Speaker 1:Many countries still have a very top-down epidemiological, biomedical perspective on public health yeah, and then when you overlay that with bureaucracy, with corruption, with certain political perspectives, it can make it even more difficult to have a broader perspective on public health. So for me, I've been in contact with people in north America and being involved in a little bit of work in North America around brain health, for example, and there's a concept that we don't use in Europe but it's quite strong in America, right. But I think places like America are well positioned and got some excellent, very high quality people in public health.
Speaker 2:Probably for me, it's better to spend my time in transition countries where people are really looking for new ideas, you know well, yeah, I'm excited to follow along your journey and kind of the work that you're going to do in latin america and then specifically sri lanka, since, uh- I was born there and have, uh, I think my heart is still kind of connected to that country, so I I will for sure be following your journey, glenn, and where can people maybe keep in touch with you and read more about the work that you're doing?
Speaker 1:well, everything's online these days, really isn't it professionally? So I mean, I have a LinkedIn account and I have a ResearchGate account. I don't have a personal account. I never really wanted to have a personal account, like some people really wanted to have a personal account, as some people do.
Speaker 2:But people can Google my name, I guess, online, or look at my LinkedIn or look at my research case. Yeah, we'll link all of that up. Thank you so much, glenn. This is such a wonderful chat. For me just to learn about the journey that you've taken, and I've certainly taken away lots of personal reflections from this as well.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Hey, I hope you enjoyed that episode and if you want to get the links or information mentioned in today's episode, you can head over to phspotorg slash podcast and we'll have everything there for you. And before you go go, I want to tell you about the public health career club. So if you've been looking for a place to connect and build meaningful relationships with other public health professionals from all around the world, you should join us in the public health career club. We launched the club with the vision of becoming the number one hangout spot dedicated to building and growing your dream public health career. And in addition to being able to connect and build those meaningful relationships with other public health professionals, the club also offers other great resources for your career growth and success, like mindset coaching, job preparation clinics and career growth strategy sessions in the form of trainings and talks, all delivered by experts and inspiring individuals in these areas.
Speaker 2:So if you want to learn more or want to join the club, you can visit our page at phspotorg slash club and we'll have all the information there. We'll have all the information there and you know, as a space that's being intentionally curated to bring together like-minded public health professionals who are not only there to push themselves to become the best versions of themselves, but also each other. And with that I can't wait to see how this is going to have a ripple effect in the world, as we all work together to better the health of our populations and just have immense impact in the world. And I hope you'll be joining us in the Public Health Career Club.