Sophia Couzos

Associate Professor Sophia Couzos is a public health physician and general practitioner. She is currently working as an Associate Professor of General Practice and Rural Medicine teaching undergraduate students with the College of Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University. She is also a researcher with the Anton Breinl Centre for Health Systems Strengthening within the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine. She has over 30 years of experience working for Aboriginal community-controlled health services in remote Australia, the Queensland Aboriignal and Islander Health Council, and with the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation in Canberra. She spent 14 years living and working in remote Australia, with 7 years as a clinician in ACCHSs in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

She has been public health adviser to several consecutive NACCHO Chairs during the period from 1998-2012. During this time, as a member of the Secretariat, she instigated, developed, and influenced a wide range of national policies, programs and research. Examples include: ‘quality use of medicines’/co-payment relief programs such as QUMAX, the Indigenous Practice Incentive Payment, Medicare Rebates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult health checks, specific PBS medicines listings, Asthma Spacers Ordering System (with the Asthma Foundation), and numerous other programs. She has worked in partnership with Aboriginal representative bodies, Aboriginal leaders, non-government organisations, private industry, and government departments. She has extensive experience in supporting consumer involvement in the policy process.

She instigated and led the development of seminal clinical practice guidelines, including leading the 3rd edition of the National Guide to a Preventive health Assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for the NACCHO in partnership with the RACGP.

She edited and authored the textbook ‘Aboriginal Primary Health Care: An evidence-based Approach’ (to a 3rd edition, published by Oxford University Press) shortlisted and ‘highly commended’ in the Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing in 2008. She led multicenter award-winning research (a national NHMRC funded double-blind randomised controlled clinical trial investigating ototopical treatment for chronic suppurative otitis media), specializing in community-based participatory research, and translating the research findings into programs that are in operation nation-wide.

As an academic and educator, she was awarded a JCU Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2017 and an Award for Excellence in 2023. She is a medical educator of an undergraduate medical curriculum addressing the ecology of health, patient-centred care, advocacy, health policy, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, authored the chapter “Advocacy and the Health Professional Role” in the Oxford University Press textbook on ‘Professional and Therapeutic Communication’ and teaches ‘professionalism’ to first year medical students.

She was the lead investigator for large-scale pragmatic, community-based, prospective quasi-experimental trial for the integration of non-dispensing pharmacists within ACCHSs for the management of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients with chronic disease (IPAC Project). She is a supervisor of Registrars within the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and currently Public Health Medical Director for the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (QAIHC).