Dr Biswajit Banik

Position: Lecturer and Research Fellow
Discipline: Public Health
Location: Berwick Campus, Building 901, Room 125
Phone: +61 3 4313 7937
Email: b.banik@federation.edu.au

Qualifications

PhD Doctor of Philosophy - Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), La Trobe University - 2013

Master of Public Health - National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), University of Dhaka - 2004

Post Graduate Diploma in Health Economics - Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka - 2000

MBBS Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery - Dhaka Medical College, University of Dhaka - 1996

Teaching

Courses

  • HEAPH 6001 – Introduction to Public Health
  • HEAPH 6003 – Biostatistics
  • HEAPH 6004 – Indigenous Health
  • HEAPH 7003 – Public Health Economics

Biography

Biswajit Banik is a medical doctor and public health academic works as a lecturer at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing (IHW), Federation University Australia. He teaches Oublic Health programs as lead course coordinator and supervises HDR students. He is also appointed as a Research Fellow by the Manna Institute, Regional Australia Mental Health Research and Training Institute, a project of Regional University Network (RUN), led by University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia (https://mannainstitute.au/mid-career-researchers#biswajitbanik )

Biswajit started his career as a medical practitioner and worked in both private and public health sectors and for the international health agencies such as Marie Stopes, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Department for International Development (DFID) and Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) projects through HLSP Limited, UK, a large health management and consulting agency, in Bangladesh, Nepal and India and UK. After completion of his PhD from La Trobe University, Australia, Biswajit joined as a lecturer at the School of Public Health hand Preventive Medicine at Monash University in 2013 worked across Monash University’s medicine, nursing and public health programs

Biswajit is trained in quantitative and qualitative methodologies and have capacity to examine various epidemiological study designs (e.g., RCT, longitudinal cohort, etc) and hands-on research experience on sensitive topics such as sexual health, mental health and rural and regional health involving priority populations. Currently, he is a lead investigator of two projects to explore the mental health and wellbeing of young African migrants (aged 18+) and men’s health in rural and regional Australia. He is also a co-investigator of two teaching and learning projects namely, Technological Readiness Project, and Extended Learning Cycle Theory and Knowledge Types into Work Integrated Learning Project (WIL project), multidisciplinary research which involves investigators from all three Institutes of Federation University Australia and two global projects, namely COVID-19 related psychological wellbeing of community members in 17 countries  and Health and wellbeing of staff working at different universities globally during the post-pandemic period in 20 countries, led by Professor Aziz Rahman.

Biswajit  is a regular reviewer of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Development Grants to conduct the evaluation of the commercial value of the grant applications and a member of Human Research Ethics Committee of the Federation University. He is a regular OSCE examiner at the Eastern Health Clinical School and Monash Medical Centre and have established a professional network with nursing and medicine and public health academics. He is a regular peer reviewer of two prestigious journals PLOS ONE, BMC Public Health and Frontiers in Public Health

Biswajit is also a member of the mentoring and research program of the Western Alliance Research Capability Building Program, Barwon Health, Victoria called STaRR: Supporting Translation of Research In Rural And Regional Settings. He previously mentored DHHS COVID-19 Staff as part of the mentoring initiative by the Department of Health and Human Services-Public Health Australia and Australian Epidemiology Association (PHAA-AEA) Mentoring Program in 2020 – 2021. His research interest lies in health systems and equity, mental health, sexual health, men’s health, adolescent health, communicable and noncommunicable disease, aboriginal health using mixed methods.

Research interests

  • Sexual health
  • Mental health and rural and regional health
  • Chronic diseases
  • Equity
  • Priority populations

Current Projects and Grant Success

Title: Hegemonic Masculinity: Is this a barrier to rural men’s mental health and wellbeing?
Grant Applicants: Dr Biswajit Banik (Lead) Co investigators: Dr Jasleen Chhabra, Lecturer, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia
A/Prof Dixie Stathamc, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia
A/Professor Danny Hills, Director, Health Innovation and Transformation Centre (HITC)
Dr Enamul Kabird, Senior Lecturer (Statistics), Toowoomba Campus, University of Southern QLD Funder: Regional Australia Mental Health Research and Training Institute (Manna Institute) Activity 2 Funding.
Funding awarded: A$7,855.00
Date: 2022-23

Title: Mid Carer Research Fellow - Manna Institute, a research centre of the Rural University Network (RUN), led by the university of New England
Project brief: To establish research on mental health for the priority populations in rural and regional settings in Australia.
Investigators: Dr Biswajit Banik (MCR), A/ Prof Dixie Statham (Federation University Lead of the RAMHeaRT Institute) and Professor Muhammad Aziz Rahman
Duration: One year, 0.2 EFT, teaching buy-out (Oct, 2022 to Oct, 2023)
Funding: Part of $3.6m Federal Government Funding, Rural University Network (RUN), a collaboration of 7 regional universities in Australia
Funding awarded: A$41,242.00
Date: 2022-23

Title: Exploration of mental health well-being and risk-taking behaviours among African-Australian youths aged 18 years and above in an Australian context
Grant Applicants: Dr Biswajit Banik (Lead) and Dr Bindu Joseph
Funder: Federation University internal funding.
Funding awarded: A$5,000.00
Date: 2021-22

Title: Teaching and Learning - under the Student’s mobility program of the New Colombo Plan (NCP)  in collaboration with The Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia on “Health and wellbeing in resource constraint settings: Field experience from Indonesia”
Grant Applicants: Professor Md Aziz Muhammad, Dr Biswajit Banik, Mrs Nicole Coombs
Funder: New Colombo Plan (NCP) Grant Mobility Program, DFAT, Canberra, ACT
Funding awarded: A$83,000.00                                                                      
Date: 2021-23

Title: Impact of COVID on Nursing Academics’ attitudes to Technology
Investigators: Mark Browning, Biswajit Banik, Sharon Bourke, Ligi Anish, Amany Abdelkader and Miriam Muduwa
Objectives: The main purpose of the study is to explore nursing academics’ attitudes to information communication technology (ICT) and the impact of COVID -19 on those attitudes.
Funding: nonfunded, IHW staff’s project

Title: Understanding students’ learning cycle and knowledge types through Work Integrated Learning (WIL) curricula
Objectives: The main purpose of the study is to examine students’ learning and knowledge and its impact on WIL. Work Integrated Learning (WIL) incorporates work placements, clinical placements and observations done with an industry partner outside of the University
Investigators: A/Professor Soma Pillay, Dr Jasvinder Sidhu, Dr Tanveer Choudhury, Dr Kathleen Keogh, Dr Indu Somasundara Panicker, Dr Suryani Lim, Karen Schneider, Assoc Prof Jo Porter,  Dr Taiwo Oseni, Assoc Prof Ibrahim Sultan, Dr Kathy Seinkels, Dr Shoaib Riaz, Dr Biswajit Banik
Funding: nonfunded, Multidisciplinary staff’s project of the Federation University

Supervision

Current

  • Name of the student: Sumaira Amin
    PhD project title: Experiences of Patients and their carers regarding transition of care in the management of heart failure in Australia
  • Name of the: Reshmy Radamony
    PhD project title: Cultural competence among mental health nurses in a Victorian metropolitan health service

Previous

  • Name of the student: Simin Yu, Central South University, China and Federation University Australia
    Title: Willingness, preferred ways and potential barriers to use pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention among men who have sex with men in China

Master by Research: Awarded.

Publications

ORCID ID https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-3161-5716

Associations

  • Public Health Association Australia