Malama Tafuna'i
Primary Care Physician, Senior Professional Practice Fellow, Va'a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health, University of Otago
Malama Tafuna’i is a primary care physician in Samoa and senior professional practice fellow at Va'a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Since 2015, she has been involved in medical education, initially with the National University of Samoa School of Medicine and now at Va’a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health. Tafuna’i’s interest in academia arose from working at the grassroots level with rural communities in Samoa and New Zealand, trying to understand rising health burdens and develop solutions. In Samoa she navigates the challenges in delivering primary care services in a low-resourced Pacific Island nation. Tafuna’i has shared the importance of integrating climate change and health into medical education using a Pacific-lens as a clinician living and working on a Pacific Island.
Previously
Climate change, with its global threats to health, could destroy low-lying nations and push as many as 135 million people into poverty by 2030, according to the World Bank. Bu...
Extreme heat waves, storms, and wildfires; disease outbreaks, water shortages, and crop loss; tick-borne illnesses and asthma—these are just some visible signs of a changing c...