Sophie Landau
Sophie Landau reports on how health systems, social services and community life intersect, with a consistent focus on the real-world consequences for people in South Australia. Her coverage for the ABC centres on lived experience, using detailed case studies and first-person stories to show what policies and programs mean for patients, families and regional communities. She returns often to themes of mental health, access to care, and inclusive environments, distinguishing her work from generic health reporting by its attention to vulnerable groups and everyday settings.
Access to care and health policy in South Australia
Landau’s health coverage frequently traces the impact of policy decisions on individual patients. In her report on free HIV treatment, she follows a woman who describes being “still here to see grandkids grow” after gaining access to newly funded medication, using that experience to illustrate how changes in public programs can be life‑changing rather than abstract. She treats drug funding and clinical guidelines as human stories, showing both the relief and the practical challenges for those who rely on public health systems.
She uses a similar lens in her reporting on the shortage of psychiatrists in regional South Australia, where she examines a damning review that found fewer rural psychiatrists per person than in countries such as Mongolia, Ukraine or Russia. In that piece she ties workforce numbers to service gaps, highlighting how limited full‑time positions outside metropolitan centres translate into delays, travel burdens and risk for people needing specialist care. Her work on the preventable death of Theo Papageorgiou extends this focus on systems, explaining how one man’s experience with mental health services exposes flaws in existing laws and how his story is being used to drive reforms to South Australia’s mental health legislation. Across these stories, Landau distinguishes herself by connecting policy documents and inquiries directly to patients and families, so that structural issues feel immediate rather than distant.
Mental health, safety and social support
Mental health and personal safety are recurring threads in Landau’s reporting. In addition to legislative and workforce stories, she looks at how everyday institutions act as informal support systems. Her coverage of libraries becoming safe spaces for people seeking refuge from emergencies or violence shows how cultural and community venues are being repurposed as places of safety, describing how staff and infrastructure adapt to meet needs during crises and domestic violence situations. This interest in non‑clinical support environments runs through several pieces, as she examines where people turn when formal health services are stretched or inaccessible.
Her reporting on children experiencing school refusal explores the mental health pressures on young students and their families, treating attendance problems as a symptom of anxiety and distress rather than simple truancy. In work on regional psychiatry services, she again emphasises the emotional and logistical strain on those trying to manage serious mental illness in areas with minimal specialist support. The result is a body of work that views mental health as embedded in homes, schools and community spaces, not just in hospitals and clinics.
LGBTQIA+ inclusion, youth and education
Landau has a distinct sub‑beat around youth wellbeing and LGBTQIA+ inclusion. In her feature on LGBTQIA+ students calling for more inclusive classrooms, she reports on how sexuality education often omits queer lives, quoting young people and advocates who argue that inclusive teaching requires stripping away assumptions about gender, sexuality and bodies. She shows how curriculum decisions affect whether queer students feel seen and safe at school, framing education policy as a health and wellbeing issue rather than solely an academic one.
She also engages with questions of how teenagers use and disengage from social media, inviting community input on whether young people are “switching off” from online platforms and what that means for their social lives and mental health. By pairing classroom experiences, digital habits and identity, her coverage in this area speaks to the broader environment in which young people form relationships, learn about themselves and access support. These youth‑focused stories sit alongside her broader health reporting, but they share the same emphasis on voices that are often marginalised in traditional coverage.
Community resilience, history and environment
Beyond clinical health topics, Landau often situates wellbeing within environmental conditions and local history. In her piece on algal bloom information being “inconsistent” amid a survey of health impacts, she reports on how conflicting public messages about water quality and safety affect community trust and decision‑making. Her coverage of Murray River flood photos on social media shows how residents document disasters in real time to build an archive that can inform future planning, linking digital practices to long‑term resilience and preparedness.
She has written historical and human‑interest features that still connect back to community safety and identity. Her story on Harold Casement’s dive to plug Riverland stormwater drains during the 1956 flood revisits a critical moment when local action prevented further damage, using archival material to show how past events shape current infrastructure and memory. Another feature follows photographer Grant Schwartzkopff, who turned to his camera while his wife was ill and ultimately produced images seen as capturing the spirit of his region, blending personal coping with collective representation.
Landau also covers social programs like Cambrai Primary School’s provision of free breakfast and lunch, exploring how school meal initiatives address hunger, support concentration and reduce inequality among students. In work on the darker side of the pet industry, she examines how demand for exotic pets can harm ecosystems when animals are poached from the wild, linking consumer choices to environmental and ethical consequences. She occasionally profiles cultural figures such as novelist Kathy Lette, bringing gender and feminism into her reporting on public events. Taken together, these stories show a consistent approach: health is not isolated, but woven through environmental conditions, historical memory, culture and everyday community life.
4 more health journalists.
Abida Tasnim
Abida Tasnim is a health writer for The Daily Star who focuses on clear, practical guidance that helps readers recognise risks early and act before everyday illnesses turn into wider public health problems. She reports on infectious disease prevention, using measles coverage to show how outbreaks start with individual decisions and behaviours, not just hospital statistics. Her work explains what happens during an outbreak and then anchors the story in simple steps people can take, such as avoiding crowded places when symptoms appear, practising good hygiene, and seeking medical advice early. She writes direct, action‑oriented health explainers that turn clinical questions about contagion and disease burden into everyday choices. Across her beat, she stresses early recognition, timely care, and prevention as the foundations of healthier communities.
Adrián Carballo Casla
Adrián Carballo Casla stands out for turning complex cohort data on ageing into clear, food‑level advice on what older adults should eat to protect brain health and slow chronic disease. He is a researcher in nutritional epidemiology focused on ageing and chronic disease prevention and a postdoctoral researcher in geriatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, writing health explainers for The Conversation. He reports on how diet quality, especially Mediterranean and Mind‑style patterns, shapes dementia risk, grey matter loss and neurocognitive ageing, and how healthy versus pro‑inflammatory diets alter multimorbidity trajectories. His articles translate findings on flavonoids, polyphenols, folate, omega‑3 fats and dietary nitrates into specific food choices and small, practical changes. Much of his coverage is anchored in his own studies on multimorbidity, high‑risk older adults and tailored dietary recommendations, often syndicated to other outlets.
Ahmed Elbediwy
Ahmed Elbediwy brings a lab-based understanding of cancer biology and clinical biochemistry to public-facing health reporting, linking drug mechanisms and molecular pathways to everyday choices about medicines and products. He writes for The Conversation on weight-loss injections, cancer overdiagnosis and anti-ageing supplements, focusing on obesity medicine, cancer signalling, screening trade-offs, skincare and supplement science. His pieces on GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro explain why some people do not respond, how gut hormones and appetite signals work, and where psychological support and nutrition fit alongside prescriptions. He co-authors explainers on cancer risk and overdiagnosis and on whether supplements can reverse ageing, separating established knowledge from emerging research. An award-winning senior lecturer at Kingston University, he favours clear, structured explainers, careful definition of key terms and evidence-based appraisal over hype.
Amanda Sheppeard
Amanda Sheppeard is a managing editor and health journalist known for long, detailed explainers that connect complex clinical research, disability policy and political narratives with the daily realities of doctors and patients. She works at The Medical Republic across editorial leadership and commercial content while reporting widely on medicine for its specialist titles. Her real beat spans autism, disability policy, autoimmune disease, infectious threats and system pressures in primary care and hospitals. She covers subjects such as autism diagnosis and the NDIS, rheumatology’s clinical shifts, weight-loss agents in rheumatoid arthritis, infection control, antimicrobial resistance and new modalities like CAR T-cell therapy and microneedles. She reports by doing the synthesis inside the story, linking trial design, molecular targets, funding rules and policy changes to concrete decisions and workflows in clinics and hospitals.