Who is he?
He is an early-career researcher and teaching staff at the Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia. His research interest is an intersection between health policy, journalism and science communication. He believes science communication is crucial in bridging the gap between research, health policy, and practical implementations. Apart from his daily responsibilities, Ilham is actively involved in the Society of Indonesian Science Journalists (SISJ) as a non-journalist member. His team recently won a small global grant from The Global Network for Academic Public Health Program to fund a project on applying science communication to innoculate the public from vaccine misinformation.
The dire situation that Indonesia is currently experiencing in handling health crises cannot be separated from the catastrophic responses in the critical first three months of dealing with the pandemic. The failure was mainly caused by the lack of coherence in communicating policies corresponding to curbing COVID-19 infections to the public.
Managing information during the pandemic is even more difficult since public spaces, like social media, are littered with disinformation and misinformation. Sometimes, the controversy is started by “the unofficial political buzzers” that the government relies upon to communicate policy. The Indonesian government’s communication strategy is predominantly about the polarization of information between scientists, journalists, and politicians. This led him to think that a combination of appropriate health policy and robust science journalism & science communication is crucial to overcome this situation. This is where, I think, science journalism and science communication can build bridges between science, health policy, and public risk awareness.
Health Policy and Politics, Journalism and Science Communication
**Email**
Academic Degree
2021 - Current (on-going)
Doctoral of Social Science (Sozialwissenschaften), Institute for Communication Studies and Media Research, Faculty of Social Science, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen
2009 – 2011
Master of Health Policy and Administration, Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Airlangga
2004 – 2009
Bachelor of Public Health, Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Airlangga
Selective Training 2021 Discourse Network Analysis (Center for Indonesia's Strategic Development Initiatives)
2020 Practical Peer Reviewer Course (Publons Academy)
2020 Good Clinical Practice (NIDA Clinical Trials Network, US)
2020 Workshop of Policy Research Batch I (Universitas Gadjah Mada)
2019 Workshop on Systematic Review of Qualitative Research (Cochrane Indonesia)
2018 Developing a Social Insurance Based Health Care System (Coventry University-NHS, UK)
2017 Applied Approach for Higher Education
2016 Improvement of Basic Instructional Techniques Skills for Higher Education
2022