International Women's Day – Diversity in women’s sexual health and wellbeing

Dr Blessing Akombi-Inyang
Researcher in Migrant Health and School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney
Community engagement of migrant women

Blessing is an emerging early career researcher in global health specialising in maternal, adolescent and child health, including childhood under-nutrition and the double burden of malnutrition among vulnerable subpopulations including migrants. Her research provides evidence for community-based interventions to improve health outcomes among vulnerable sub-populations, particularly in developing countries and low resource-settings as well as among migrant populations. She has successfully translated her research into practice and has led community-based initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa aimed at scaling up the uptake of evidence-based interventions for improving health outcomes.

Blessing is the Post-Graduate Coordinator for the Professional Doctorate (DrPH) program in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. She also convenes courses in Global Health within the School of Population Health, UNSW. Blessing has a growing interest in migrant health within Australia particularly in the aspects of nutrition and lifestyle transition post-migration.

Dr Deborah Bateson
Medical Director, Family Planning NSW and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Sydney
Respecting Diversity: Enhancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women with intellectual disability

Deborah is Medical Director of Family Planning New South Wales and has worked as a clinician, educator, researcher and advocate in sexual and reproductive health and rights for almost 20 years. Deborah holds honorary positions as Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney and Clinical Associate Professor in the Discipline of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Neonatology at The University of Sydney. Deborah’s work focusses on equitable access to high quality contraception and safe abortion care, STI prevention, and cervical cancer prevention in Australia and internationally. She provides frequent commentary to the media on a range of sexual and reproductive health issues and is a past Chair of the Australasian Sexual Health Alliance.

Associate Professor Julie Mooney-Summers
School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Why a periodic health survey for lesbian, bisexual and queer women needed to adapt to gender diversity

Julie’s research focuses on the health of sexuality and gender diverse people (primarily related to tobacco, alcohol and other substance use). With ACON and Dr Rachel Deacon, she leads the longest running periodic survey of lesbian, bisexual and queer women’s health (SWASH).