DrEdward Jegasothy

I teach in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, where I coordinate SUST5004 (Sustainable Development and Population Health) and co-coordinate the Environmental Health unit. My teaching integrates critical theoretical perspectives into core epidemiological and public health training.

My research operates at the intersection of epidemiology, political economy, and social theory to understand how disadvantage generates health inequalities. This includes examining tobacco use as a case study in how health risks become concentrated among multiply disadvantaged groups, analysing how welfare policy shapes population health, and developing new frameworks for understanding the role of social and economic structures in producing health outcomes. A key strand of this work challenges how mainstream epidemiology contributes to the depoliticisation of health by treating socioeconomic disadvantage as a statistical "confounder" rather than recognising it as a fundamental cause of health inequality.

I completed my PhD in 2020 investigating environmental exposures - air pollution and temperature - and their health effects on vulnerable populations in NSW. My shift from environmental epidemiology toward inequality research emerged from recognising that vulnerability in climate and environmental health fundamentally stems from pre-existing structural disadvantage. I completed the NSW Health Biostatistics Training Program and Master of Biostatistics in 2018, and my Master of International Public Health at the University of Sydney in 2013.