Sarah Larkins
- sarah.larkins@jcu.edu.au
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7561-3202- Dean, Medicine and Dentistry
- College of Medicine & Dentistry
Biography
Dr Sarah Larkins is an experienced research leader, general practitioner and Professor of Health Systems Strengthening in the College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University. Sarah has particular skills and experience in rural health services and workforce research and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research and is an internationally recognised expert in social accountability in health professional education. Sarah is also a current member of the NHMRC Research Committee (2022-24 and 2025-2027 triennia), a Research Australia Board Member and National Research Lead for the Workforce Innovation stream of the Care Economy Cooperative Research Centre (2025-2035).
To date, Sarah has over 200 published peer-reviewed journal articles and several book chapters, with an h-index of 40, more than 5400 citations and well over $100m in grant funding. This includes seven current NHMRC/MRFF grants as a CI (3 as CI A), investigating participatory strategies to strengthen health services and recent grants from DESE and DFAT . She currently supervises 9 students at HDR level with 22 PhD completions. Other recent funding is from the CRC-NA, the Commonwealth Department of Health and the Department of Education.
Sarah's particular focus is on collaborating to improve equity in health care services for underserved populations, particularly rural, remote, Indigenous and tropical populations, and on training a health workforce with appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills for this purpose. She is a past co-chair, Primary and Chronic Care Panel and Guideline Leadership Group Member of the National Living Evidence Guidelines for COVID-19, Director, Townsville Mackay Medicare Local and past member of the World Health Organisation Technical Working Group on Health Workforce Education Assessment Tools and the National Technical Advisory Group for Health Workforce Australia.
She currently serves as a member of the Research and Industry Advisory group for the NHMRC-recognised Tropical Australian Academic Health Centre, and served on Research Australia University Round Table and IRU Research Committee.
Research
Research Interests
Rural health workforce
Socially accountable health professional education
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
Primary health care
Maternal and child health
Health systems strengthening
Research capacity strengthening
Projects
Teaching
Teaching Interests
Sociology of health care and social determinants of health
Research methods
General Practice
Research Advisor Accreditation
Advisor Type
Mentor
Research Advisor Accreditation
Role
Chair; Independent Academic
