Honouring Adj Assoc Prof Priscilla Robinson for her decades of efforts to Public Health

Adj Prof Tarun Weeramanthri, President, PHAA
Adj Prof Terry Slevin, CEO, PHAA

The President’s Award citation reads: “For outstanding contribution to the betterment and protection of public health in Australia”.

It’s a fitting honour for Priscilla Robinson, who has been a long standing and active member of the PHAA and its various Special Interest Groups, and whose work has gone largely under-recognised.

Her career in public health teaching and research spans over 50 years in both Australia and the UK. She has also taught and researched aspects of public health in many low-income countries, such as Gambia, Kenya, Indonesia, India, and Nepal.

Her public health contributions have been extensive in the areas of international health (with a focus on disaster management and recovery), infectious and communicable diseases, and water and sanitation hygiene.

Priscilla has been an editor for the PHAA’s journal, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, and has played a key mentoring role for new reviewers and editors. She will finally be handing over the role in late 2022, after 14 dedicated years on the editorial team.

As a qualified epidemiologist, Priscilla has kept PHAA members informed with the Code International Update, a weekly snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing efforts by nations around the world to test, track and fight the virus.

On December 6 2022, the date that marks the 1,000th day of the pandemic – having been so declared on March 11, 2020 by the WHO – Priscilla’s final Code will be posted on the PHAA Intouch blog.

Priscilla also plays a key role for the association at an international level, where she has been co-chair of the World Federation of Public Health Association’s working group for Professional Education and Training, for the last seven years.

As part of this role, she has recently become co-chair of the working group responsible for strengthening competency-based education of the public health workforce, for the WHO Taskforce oversighting implementation of the National workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions including a focus on emergency preparedness and response: Roadmap for aligning WHO and partner contributions.

In Australia, her contributions to public health competencies include co-authorship of the Foundation Competencies for Master of Public Health Graduates in Australia, and the research, analysis, revision, and authorship of the second edition of that document.

Her most recent work includes a major review of the Australasian Public Health Competencies, the recommendations from which are being enacted by the Council of Academic Public Health Institutions of Australasia, a project in which Priscilla continues to play an advisory role.

She was also a co-researcher and co-author of the 2016 second edition of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Public Health Curriculum Framework.

Additionally, Priscilla is Director of the International Health and Epidemiology of the Guidelines and Economists International organisation, and a Board member of the NGO, CONCERN Australia.