Season 1, Episode 2

Dr Lauren Pearson

Researcher at the Monash University Sustainable Mobility and Safety Research Group

Guest biography

Dr Lauren Pearson is a research fellow and equity lead within the Sustainable Mobility and Safety Research Group at Monash University. She’s an applied transport and public health researcher, and her vision is to unlock the potential of equitable, active transport such as walking and bike riding to realise the significant health, environmental, social and economic benefits of people getting more active in their everyday lives.

Key concepts mentioned in Lauren’s interview

• Co-design: Co-design processes bring consumers, carers, and health workers together to design, improve or deliver services as equal partners.
• Health equity: Equity is the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically or by other dimensions of inequality (e.g. sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation). Health equity is achieved when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being.
• Gender equity: Gender equity is the provision of fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between people of all genders.
• Intersectionality: A view that accepts that health is shaped by complex and overlapping factors including education, age, race, class, income, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, and geography, among other factors.
• Determinants of health: Many factors combine together to affect the health of individuals and communities. Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their circumstances and environment. To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less of an impact.

Why Lauren thinks public health is great

Public health is the art and science of enabling people to live the healthiest lives they can. It cuts across multiple sectors and disciplines, within medicine/health and beyond, to come up with creative, smart solutions to health problems, often focused on prevention rather than cure. These solutions often benefit multiple community members, as opposed to treatments that only benefit the individual receiving them.

Top tips for students

• Being curious and confident enough to talk to people outside your own bubble will give depth to your understanding of lived experiences and challenges faced by people across society.
• Do not get hung up on having a tangible job title.
• Define what your values are, and try to figure out how you can work towards a job that aligns with those values.

Lauren’s recommendation

• Read Educated by Tara Westover

Episode sponsors