Dr Barbara Nattabi is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Population and Global Health. Previously she worked at the Western Australian Centre for Rural Health (2010-2019), where she was a NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow (2014-2018). Barbara is medical doctor, public health researcher and educator with over two decades of clinical, infectious disease and public health research experience in post conflict Northern Uganda and Australia.

Barbara’s current research focuses on sexually transmissible infections, health services reform and quality improvement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary sexual health care services. She is currently an Associate Investigator NHMRC Partnership Grant: Integration and expansion of a sentinel surveillance system to improve infectious disease outcomes for Indigenous Australians; the ATLAS network (2022-2026) and a mid-career researcher affiliated with the Centre of Research Excellence – STRengthening systems for InDigenous health care Equity (CRE-STRIDE) (2020-2024). Barbara has won several awards and has been awarded fellowships and grants worth $4.4 million, of which $3.4 million is Category 1 funding (NHMRC & ARC).

Barbara’s other interests include COVID-19, HIV epidemiological, clinical and social research, family and domestic violence, sexual and reproductive health among vulnerable populations, especially young people, social determinants of health, impact of stigma and discrimination on health behaviour and outcomes, mixed methods research, refugee and migrant health and rural health education.

Barbara has significant experience in curriculum development, mentoring and teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students and student supervision; due to her excellent teaching she has been nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award (Individual teaching) and nominated for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. She is the unit coordinator of Health Program Evaluation unit and the Epidemiology and Control of Communicable Disease unit at the School of Population and Global Health and coordinates population health teaching in the Doctor of Medicine degree at UWA. Barbara is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and she is also an Associate Director (Student Engagement) and Research Fellow, Africa Research and Engagement Centre (AfREC), University of Western Australia.

Barbara also makes significant contributions to her School, University and local community; she sits on several School committees, is a committee member of the UWA –Women in Science Community of Practice and regularly holds talks with local migrant communities. She has peer reviewed for over 13 journals and also NHMRC grants. Due to her expertise in public health and infectious diseases and significantly strong public health communication skills, she has been invited over 30 times to provide expert commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic for local, national and international media. She has also been invited to sit on expert panels conducted by the UWA Public Policy Institute and been asked to contribute to UWA COVID-19 Expert Series.

Unit Coordinator, Health Program Evaluation (PUBH5705)

Unit Coordinator, Epidemiology and Control of Communicable Disease (PUBH5761)

Lecturer, Epidemiology 1 (PUBH4403)

Lead, School of Population and Global Health MD and Medical Sciences (IMED3111/3112)

Discipline Lead Population Health MD Year 1 (IMED3111/3112)

Focus on HIV, COVID-19, sexually transmitted infections including chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis, and health systems reform to control STI transmission

COVID-19 and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) populations

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health

Sexually Transmitted Infections and Blood Borne Viruses including HIV

Primary health care

Health services research

Quality improvement of primary health care

Rural health services

Rural health education

Associate Director (Student Engagement) and Research Fellow, Africa Research and Engagement Centre (AfREC), University of Western Australia

Member, Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF)

Member, Community of Practice for Action on HIV and Mobility (CoPAHM)

Member, WA Sexual Health and Blood-borne Virus Applied Research and Evaluation Network (SiREN) Interest Group

Health Program Evaluation (PUBH5705)

Epidemiology and Control of Communicable Disease (PUBH5761)

Epidemiology 1 (PUBH4403)

Integrated Medical Systems (IMED3111)

Integrated Medical Systems (IMED3112)

Nattabi B. (2021-2022). Bridging the gap in quality of care: System oriented approaches for the control of sexually transmissible infections among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians

Lopez, D., Nattabi, B., & Jenkins, S. (2019-2021). Process evaluation: Real-world data to evaluate the implementation of a randomised control community pulmonary rehabilitation trial for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Thompson, S. C., Moran, M., Fisher, C., Martin, K., Nattabi, B., & Fordham, H. (2019). Conversations for Change: accelerating efforts to prevent family violence

Nattabi B, Gudka S, Ward J, Rumbold A. Quality improvement interventions for improving the detection and management of curable sexually transmitted infections in primary care – Cochrane Review.

Nattabi B, Rumbold A, Matthews V, Gibson-Helm M, Boyle J, Larkins S, et al. Determining factors associated with sexually transmissible infection and blood borne virus screening in pregnancy at Indigenous primary health centres