Professor Samar Aoun
Professor Aoun commenced as co-director of the Curtin site in July 2008. Professor Aoun has a PhD in Medical Demography from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Masters in Public Health from The American University of Beirut. Her training and experience is in designing, implementing and evaluating health service delivery initiatives and public health interventions for different population groups.
Samar has developed effective national and international collaborations with other academic institutions and key stakeholders to address population health issues related to terminal illnesses and palliative care. She has undertaken projects that have informed policy on service planning and the development of support structures for the palliative care community at the state and national levels: The National Inquiry on the Social Impact of Caring for Terminally Ill people funded by Palliative Care Australia; the NHMRC funded national project on the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Australian models of Palliative Care Delivery in four neurodegenerative disorders; the Commonwealth funded national project on Scoping the Palliative Care Needs of People Living Alone; the State-funded Review of Palliative Care Provision in Western Australia; the commonwealth funded National Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration; The Commonwealth funded Systematic Review of the Literature into Complicated Grief and the development of an EORTC Quality of Life Module for radiation induced Proctitis.
Professor Aoun’s current projects include two NHMRC funded projects: the first is on determining critical points in the potential palliative care pathway in the last year of life using data linkage and the second project is on developing an educational program to guide palliative care for people with Motor Neurone Disease and an ARC funded project on implementing and evaluating flexible models of palliative care service delivery for terminally ill people living alone at home. She is also leading a community based project on chronic disease self-management “The Waist Disposal Challenge”. Samar is a founding member of an international collaboration between Australia, UK and Canada on Family Caregiving Research in End of Life Care.
Professor Aoun has extensive experience in rural health and community development having lived and conducted research in rural Australia, published on rural health issues and served voluntarily on several rural boards and committees for over 14 years. She is currently the chair of the WA Country Health Services Ethics Committee. Samar’s dedication and personal commitment to improving health and community engagement have been recognised by three awards: a regional award in 2001 “the South West Woman of the Year”, a national award in 2003 “the Centenary Medal” and recently she was a recipient of Paul Harris Fellow award from Rotary International (March 2008).
