Dr Peter Bai James

Dr Peter Bai James is a lecturer and researcher at The National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine at Southern Cross University. Peter’s brings a wealth of research experience in exploring the role of integrative medicine in the managing the complications experienced by survivors of emerging and re-emerging viral infectious diseases. His PhD in Public health, led to the first ever study of the role of traditional complementary and integrative medicine in post viral management of Ebola survivors in West Africa.

The findings of this work have been integrated into national polices to ensure traditional complementary and integrative healthcare approaches are included in the management of current and future emerging and re-emerging viral infectious diseases such as long COVID.  

“Survivors of emerging infectious diseases experience a myriad of physical and mental sequelae, which negatively impacts their quality of life, and places a strain on the healthcare system. This is even more pronounced among Culturally and Linguistically diverse (CALD) populations.” 

Long COVID in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations 

At SCU, Peter is leveraging on his field and research experience in improving the health and wellbeing of Ebola survivors in West Africa and his involvement in health promotion initiatives for CALD communities in Australia, to develop an integrative lifestyle medicine intervention to manage long-COVID in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations (CALD). With support from the faculty of health at SCU, Peter conducted a preliminary study to explore the impact of COVID-19 on African migrants in Australia. As part of his preliminary work Peter is exploring the lived experiences of African migrants with long COVID and the community’s understanding of long COVID and attitude towards people with long COVID. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia, has observed an increasing number of COVID-19 survivors experiencing severe and long-term physical and psychological sequelae. These sequelae can negatively impact survivors' quality of life, and the associated healthcare needs and costs are challenging to the healthcare system. Such impacts are expected to be more pronounced among Culturally and Linguistically diverse (CALD) populations due to existing health, economic and social inequalities that limit their access to healthcare services. Such inequity highlights the need to protect vulnerable populations in our society. This requires health and social services to be competent to respond appropriately to the health and psychosocial needs of migrants. Currently, there is a dearth of empirical research on the impact of long COVID in ethnically minoritised communities in Australia. Peter's work will serve as a powerful advocacy tool for migrants’ health and wellbeing to be a critical component in long COVID response policy discussions. It will also help develop this urgently needed body of knowledge to inform long COVID-related interventions targeting migrants in Australia. 

Donate to the Centre to help us continue to support Peter's work with understanding the impacts of long COVID and the attitude towards people living with it.

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