Uday Narayan Yadav

My path to studying PhD in Public Health at the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity (CPHCE) has most probably been longer than most. I choose CPHCE because of the uniqueness, flexibility and rigour of implementation research, and the opportunity to learn from some of the world's foremost experts in Implementation research.

After completion of my Master's degree in public health (Epidemiology) in 2014 from Manipal University, India, I started working as a Program Manager at INGO in Nepal. The community exposure in Nepal gave me great insights into community health problems, which was far more than one gets from book and journals. This inspired me to go for higher study, where I can merge both field and academic knowledge for the benefits of those whom I choose to serve in my life. I am always, troubled by the vast inequalities in health status and outcomes in Nepal and around the globe, particularly in chronic disease. Being afflicted with a non-communicable disease is more fatal in Nepal than in developed countries because of affordability, restricted accessibility to adequate medical treatment and poor self-management of the conditions. The poor are disproportionately vulnerable in Nepal. Seeking to make a difference, I committed myself to be a factor for change by intervening in the underlying structural determinants of health and wellbeing for chronic disease patients. Therefore, I decided to work on designing and piloting of self-management intervention for multi-morbid Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients of Nepal with the excellent team of CPHCE, UNSW, Prof. Mark Fort Harris, Associate Prof. Jane Lloyd and, Dr Hassan Hosseinzadeh (from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine).

Since I'm only in my first year, I'm still exploring opportunities to get involved in other research activities besides my PhD work to get further in-depth knowledge about Australian health systems and policies. I believe I will gain invaluable experience in community-centred program design, impact evaluation and data analytics, and the emergent field of action research. Having been involved in other research projects, it became increasingly apparent that to perform quality research; I required more knowledge about designing intervention, methodological considerations as well as further statistical expertise. This opportunity at CPHCE is a way for me to explore in-depth the full span of these topics areas and contribute to developing better quality evidence.