Complicating The Narrative

In this podcast, hosted by Dr. Salma Abdalla—Assistant Professor and Director of the Healthier Futures Lab at Washington University in St. Louis—we provide rigorous, evidence-based analysis of complex population health challenges. In a time of social, economic, and political upheaval—marked by eroding public trust, polarized narratives, and growing uncertainty—this podcast aims to challenge oversimplified narratives about the forces that shape the health of populations.Salma engages guests from across disciplines in rigorous, evidence-based conversations that challenge conventional wisdom. The conversations sometimes pose uncomfortable questions, seek nuanced perspectives, and question not just what we think, but how we arrive at our conclusions in public health.We explore the inherent complexities, real-world tradeoffs, and unintended consequences of public health interventions. Our goal is to empower listeners with nuanced understanding, helping them navigate these multifaceted iss

Complicating The Narrative is a science podcast hosted by Salma Abdalla, with 39 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Salma Abdalla hosts Complicating The Narrative, a science show with 39 episodes published.

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  Episode #39

  Ebola, MAHA, and what public health stops hearing with Craig Spencer

  Sep 22, 20261h 14m

  Why does public health still struggle to be trusted both at home and abroad? Craig and Salma discuss the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has disappeared from the news but continues building up to be the largest outbreak in history. They discuss Craig’s personal experience as an Ebola survivor in 2014, and analyze how Ebola, and other global health emergencies, can seem very different from an epidemiologic perspective versus the perspective of the community living through it. They then pivot to discuss domestic public health and Craig’s recent piece in The Atlantic highlighting that public health needs to take seriously the roughly 40% of Americans who support the MAHA movement and critiques of the piece, as well as Craig’s work on In Health We trust project. This episode invites you to step outside the biomedical lens of public health crises and listen to people to understand their priorities from a social and humane standpoint. About the guest: Craig Spencer is an emergency physician and an Associate Professor of the Practice of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. His research is focused on community engagement and public trust in health systems, both in global and domestic settings. His current community-engaged research program, In Health We Trust, is focused on understanding how Americans relate to health, and aims to serve as a foundation for building a more responsive and equitable US public health system. Notes: Acronyms used in this episode include: AAP = American Academy of Pediatrics DC = Washington, DC DRC = Democratic Republic of Congo DOGE = Department of Government Efficiency EKG = Electrocardiogram FDA = Food and Drug Administration HHS = Health and Human Services HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus IRBs = Institutional Review Boards MAGA = Make America Great Again MAHA = Make America Healthy Again NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization NIH = National Institutes of Health PEPFAR = President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ROI = Return on investment UK = United Kingdom US = United States USAID = United States Agency for International Development WHO = World Health Organization Useful resources: Spencer C. Public Health Needs MAHA. The Atlantic. July 25, 2026. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/public-health-maha-rfk/688014/ If you have any questions or feedback, email us at healthierfutureslab@wustl.edu. Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri Research for episode preparation: Catalina Melendez Contreras Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/ The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.

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  Episode #38

  Listening to patients to improve health systems with Margaret Kruk

  Sep 8, 202649 min

  When was the last time a health system asked people for what they needed? Margaret Kruk joins Salma to discuss health systems and one of their key components: the experience of patients. They start their conversation with an overview of the functions and components of a health system and highlight that, similar to other service industries, healthcare needs to function for the people it serves and should check-in with these end-users. Margaret revisits her early-on experiences as a family doctor in rural Canada and in Kigoma, Tanzania, where she realized health systems were not responding to people’s needs, despite being designed as systems that should perform well. The conversation then shifts to discussing The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems, a joint effort of researchers, healthcare providers and health systems decision makers, to understand what data were available to track quality and what data were missing to respond to the most relevant questions of quality healthcare practice, finding that available measures of quality did not map to patients’ outcomes. Shifting course, Margaret and Salma explore the People’s Voice Survey, a global survey currently measuring health systems’ quality in 23 countries based on people’s perceptions and confidence in the system. Margaret highlights the importance of confidence—reflecting security and endorsement of systems that people can count on when they need it—and the differences between mental health and chronic physical conditions. Finally, they reflect on the future of primary care, starting with a brief recount of its history and mission. They examine the role of emerging technologies, and especially artificial intelligence, on empowering patients and getting them to demand better quality of systems, considering the improvement of health systems should be a shared endeavor. This episode will invite you to reconsider what a truly patient-centered health system looks like, and what it takes to build one. Notes: Acronyms used in this podcast include: AI = Artificial Intelligence GDP = Gross Domestic Product QI = Quality Improvement UK = United Kingdom US = United States UN = United Nations UNDP = United Nations Development Programme Useful resources: Kruk ME, Gage AD, Arsenault C, et al. High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era: time for a revolution. The Lancet Global Health. 2018;6(11):e1196-e1252. doi: 1016/S2214-109X(18)30386-3 Kruk ME, Pate M. The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems 1 year on: progress on a global imperative. The Lancet Global Health. 2020;8(1):e30-e32. doi: 1016/S2214-109X(19)30485-1 Kruk ME, Kapoor NR, Arsenault C, et al. Health system use and experience among people with poor mental health: A cross-sectional analysis of the People’s Voice Survey in 18 countries. Tang S, ed. PLoS Med. 2026;23(5):e1004745. doi: 1371/journal.pmed.1004745 MAVEN-Primary Care: AI-Powered Patient-Provider Collaboration to Transform Chronic Disease Management. Digital Intelligence & Innovation Accelerator. 2026. https://di2accelerator.wustl.edu/digital-transformation-corps/2026-projects/maven-primary-care-ai-powered-patient-provider-collaboration-to-transform-chronic-disease-management/ If you have any questions or feedback, email us at healthierfutureslab@wustl.edu. Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editor: Zach Linhares Producer: Catalina Melendez Contreras Production assistant: Mateo Diaz Quiroz Marketing and social media: Kinkini Bhaduri Research for episode preparation: Mateo Diaz Quiroz Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/ The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.

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  Episode #37

  Closing the know-do gap in global public health with Kumanan Rasanathan

  Aug 18, 202647 min

  In this last episode of the Building Better Ways of Knowing (BBWK) mini-series, Kumanan joins Salma to discuss knowledge systems and their articulations with public health practice in the global context. They begin the conversation by reflecting on knowledge systems, how they have privileged and excluded different forms of knowledge, and how they have lagged behind transformations across other dimensions of society. They then touch on Kumanan’s experience working for a meningococcal B vaccine randomized control trial (RCT) in New Zealand to depict how some forms of knowledge generation don’t reflect real-world scenarios. They then shift course to discuss the emergence of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in 1999 and the functions it serves in the global health scenario to close the “know-do gap”: supporting high-quality research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), building research capacity in LMICs, and advocating for and building the field. Finally, they discuss the changing global power dynamics with increased within-country inequities and rising health sovereignty, Professor Wasi’s concept of "The triangle that moves mountains” to describe what is needed for long-lasting change, and the expected future of universities and healthcare with the rise of artificial intelligence. This closing conversation sums up the interdisciplinary conversations hosted during this BBWK summer mini-series and invites you to comprehensively reflect on how knowledge generation intersects with real-life scenarios. About the guest: Kumanan Rasanathan is the Executive Director of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a public health physician with a strong background in health policy and systems research and extensive experience working at different levels of the World Health Organization and within the wider UN system. As part of The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Kumanan and his team lead the global learning component of the Building Better Ways of Knowing initiative. Notes: Acronyms mentioned in this episode include: AI = Artificial Intelligence LLM = Large Language Model RCT = Randomized Controlled Trial SAS = Statistical Analysis System WHO = World Health Organization Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Helmut Schenker / Omnia from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/tracks/60e14d61-23ca-4899-9c56-9a9018634986/ The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.

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  Episode #36

  Purple Public Health episode—Research funding and incentives with Michael Lauer

  Aug 14, 202658 min

  Almost nothing about how the United States government funds health research was chosen. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began with leftover penicillin money and a letter to medical school deans. The decision to fund projects rather than people came from a foundation protecting itself during the Depression. The paperwork came from a congressman who was annoyed in 1962. Michael Lauer spent nearly two decades at the NIH, serving as Deputy Director for Extramural Research from 2015 until 2025. He joins Salma to trace how these accidents hardened into a system that leaves scientists dependent on grants for their salaries, concentrates most of the money in a small number of hands, and does not grant most researchers independence until their mid-forties. They discuss what could be done differently, and the question that has gone unanswered since the 1940s: who should decide what science gets done. Dr. Lauer suggests that the current situation being faced by the NIH and researchers is the result of these structural problems and highlights that while there is a crisis, it is also an opportunity to restructure funding and research incentives. This episode asks whether the current inflection point in research funding might be the opening needed to rethink a system that was never quite designed to work. Notes: Acronyms used in this episode include: CTSA = Clinical and Translational Science Awards IACUCs = Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees IRB = Institutional Review Board MIRA = Maximizing Investigators' Research Award NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration NCI = National Cancer Institute NHLBI = National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute NIAID = National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases NIGMS = National Institute of General Medical Sciences NIH = National Institutes of Health NSF = National Science Foundation PCORI = Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute R01 = Research Project Grant Fact checks: Glenn Seaborg was Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley between 1958 and 1961 About the guest: Michael Lauer is a cardiologist and physician-scientist who served as the Director of the Office of Extramural Research and the Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between October 2015 and February 2025. As Director for Extramural Research he led the NIH funding processes for universities, medical schools, and research organizations outside of the United States government. Useful resources: Bush V. Science, The Endless Frontier - 75th Anniversary Edition. National Science Foundation. Published online 2023. https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75th_w.pdf Kratsios M. Science, A New Golden Age. Office of Science and Technology Policy; 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/science/ Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/ The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.

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  Episode #35

  With, not for: communities as public health co-designers with Sara Bannoura and Darren Jackson

  Aug 11, 202643 min

  Sara and Darren join Salma to discuss Civic City’s community-first model. They start the conversation by exploring how Civic City uses knowledge, narrative, and design to co-create solutions with communities. To make this tangible, they delve into the Food City STL initiative, which started off by deep community listening and led to a city resolution declaring food as a human right. Pertaining to the role of academic research and knowledge generation, Sara and Darren talk about their collaboration with University of Missouri St. Louis, which began as something transactional and evolved to a true co-creation partnership. They also highlight the value of data, acknowledging that “data is gold”, and argue that communities sit on valuable knowledge that institutions often extract without returning value instead of sharing the findings back with the communities. Finally, they emphasize that knowledge, agency, and capacity are the three things needed to move from knowledge to action, and underscore the importance of creating new spaces to foster interaction and collaboration between academia, journalism, and community. However, they note that these interactions must acknowledge that knowledge generation and co-creation processes are scalable, but the solutions that result from them are not. If you’ve wondered what true community involvement in research looks like, and how it can evolve to ensure true co-creation of knowledge, this episode will give you concrete ideas to help catalyze this shift. About the guests: Darren Jackson is Founder of Civic City, a community-first civic venture studio in St. Louis that works with communities, industry, and government to build solutions and opportunities to public challenges. He is a civic innovation leader specializing in human-centered design, applying data, empathy, and creative problem-solving to help communities and institutions build cities for all. He previously served as Executive Sourcing Partner and Advisor to Meta, Adobe, Block, and IDEO, aiming to bridge innovation with civic impact. Sara Bannoura is Co-Founder of Civic City, where she helps lead the Food for All campaign. She is a journalist and civic systems leader who explores how storytelling, community knowledge, and lived experience shape public systems and policy. She previously served as senior producer in local television news, produced a feature documentary on the fentanyl crisis in St. Louis, and led coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic and reported daily on public health data and disparities while documenting the lived realities of communities navigating unequal access to essential resources. Notes: Acronyms mentioned in this episode include: CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CEO = Chief Executive Officer COO = Chief Operating Officer DRC = Democratic Republic of Congo USML = University of Missouri, St Louis Useful resources: 1.For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis and Why It Matters for Everyone. Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University; 2015. https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/3/1454/files/2018/06/FSOA_report_2-17zd1xm.pdf Host: Dr. Salma Abdalla Editors: Catalina Melendez Contreras Marketing: Kinkini Bhaduri Music: Eden Avery / Melting Glass from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/2fqOXWpHab/ The views and opinions expressed by the guest in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of their institution, the funders, or the podcast team.

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