Megan Arthur is an interdisciplinary qualitative researcher working at the intersection of social policy and public health. She studies the politics of governance for health and wellbeing at multiple levels, with a particular interest in the social and environmental determinants of health equity, and how these are mediated by political, economic, cultural, and commercial environments. Her work is centred on exploring the complexities and tensions within multi-actor, multi-sectoral, and multi-level governance landscapes and implications for equitable social and health outcomes, as well as governance process outcomes including policy coherence, the representation of interests, the balance of power, accountability, and hierarchies of expertise and knowledge production and use.
As an ARC Laureate Research Fellow with the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at ANU, Megan’s research explores the complex systems that underpin climate change and social and health inequities, and the impacts of climate change mitigation policies at this intersection. Prior to joining ANU, Megan’s doctoral research in the Global Health Policy Unit at the University of Edinburgh investigated the governance practices and dynamics of power within philanthropic foundations’ engagement in governance for nutrition at the national level in India.
Previous research at McGill University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the International Development Research Centre, the University of Edinburgh, and as a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO) has focused on laws and policies shaping social determinants of health and inequities, non-state actors’ practices in food systems governance, multi-stakeholder approaches to governing health and social policy, and community engagement in universal health coverage priority setting.
