Overview of Fulbright Senior Scholar program: Professor James Smith

Professor James Smith is the inaugural Director of the Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing – Northern Territory (FCMHW-NT) based at Menzies School of Health Research.

In 2019, Professor Smith was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholarship from the Fulbright Commission to undertake a program of learning and to develop future collaborations in the United States around health promotion strategies aimed at reducing health inequities among young men of colour. 

A focus of the FCMHW-NT Division program is Indigenous health and wellbeing, migrant health and wellbeing, and equity and health. Given the alignment of research interests, the Fulbright program was an important opportunity for Professor Smith to develop collaborative health promotion and health policy program opportunities. 

Professor Smith was based in the US for the program in early-mid 2020. This included 2 ½ weeks with Professor Derek Griffith (pictured left above) at the Centre for Research on Men’s Health at Vanderbilt University and 3 ½ months with Professor Daphne Watkins (pictured centre) at the Curtis Center for Health Equity Research and Training within the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan.  

During this time, Professor Smith interviewed 40 men’s health scholars, practitioners and policy-makers from across the US with an explicit interest in the health of boys and young men. He also delivered a range of guest lectures and presentations, and while there co-authored papers with Professors Griffith and Watkins relating to equity and men’s health, including

Reducing health inequities facing boys and young men of colour in the United States

and

Strengthening Policy Commitments to Equity and Men’s Health