Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Somatic NCD, Mental Health, Ageing research, Climate change and Health, Multimorbidity

20062024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Professor Tin Tin Su is a clinically qualified public health physician and researcher with more than 20 years of working experience. She is passionate about improving population health via community capacity building, social epidemiology, and implementation science research.

She is a director of the South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) Health & Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) and principal investigator for a community cohort, which includes about 38,000 population. Professor Su has extensively leveraged HDSS data from other sites via the recently established HDSS-Asia network, where she is part of the working committee.

Professor Su is one of the founding members of the Asia Health Literacy Association (AHLA) and was elected vice president of 2014–2016. She obtained the Yufong International Health Literacy Award (2017) and Health Literacy Leadership Award (2018). Professor Su is an executive board member of the International Health Literacy Association (IHLA) and director of the Asian region until 2022. She integrated the concept of health literacy in population-based research and interventions in HDSS.

She is an honorary professor at the University of Malaya (Malaysia) and Queen's University Belfast (UK), and a visiting scholar at the Heidelberg Institute for Global Health-HIGH (Germany).

Her research has been funded by various institutions including, the World Health Organization (WHO); Newton-Ungku Omar Fund: Academy of  Science Malaysia (ASM) and Medical Research Council UK (MRC-UK); Newton Fund Impact Scheme (UKRI &  MIGHT, Malaysia); MRC-UK, Global Challenge Research Fund; John Templeton Foundation (USA); Ministry of  Education-Malaysia Research University Network (MRUN) and Long term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS); University  Malaya Flagship project, University Malaya Research Programme (UMRP) and various internal grants from Monash University Malaysia.

Professor Su’s project on ‘Health effects of heat in Southeast Asia: Behavioural and structural climate change adaptation interventions in semi-rural Malaysia’ was funded by the Wellcome Trust. The grant amount is up to £1,967,644.

Professor Su is actively involved in research projects focus on digital health and is appointed as an advisory group member of the Monash University NEtwork for Equity through Digital Health (NEED).

Research interests

    • Impact of climate change on non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
    • Establishment of climate change and health evaluation and response system
    • Community engagement and capacity building
    • Digital health application, general and digital health literacy
    • Cancer screening and early diagnosis
    • Designing and implementation of community cohorts
    • Public health programme evaluation and implementation science research
    • Ageing research in community

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 2 - Zero Hunger
  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Public Health & Health Economics, Dr.Med, Household cost-of-illness study in the Nouna Health District, Burkina Faso, Universiatat Heidelberg (University of Heidelberg)

1 Oct 200331 Mar 2006

Award Date: 17 Feb 2006

Community Health & Health Management, MSc.CHHM, User fees and quality: The role of provider’s decisions and user’s perception: case study of Dhading District Hospital, Nepal, Universiatat Heidelberg (University of Heidelberg)

1 Oct 200030 Sept 2001

Award Date: 4 Sept 2001

Medicine, M.B.,B.S, Medical Sciences, University of Medicine 1

1 Nov 198231 Oct 1990

Award Date: 24 Oct 1990

External positions

Visiting Researcher, Universiatat Heidelberg (University of Heidelberg)

1 Jun 202231 Dec 2025

Honorary Professor, Queen's University Belfast

7 Oct 20216 Oct 2024

Honorary Professor, Universiti Malaya (University of Malaya)

21 Aug 201830 Jun 2026

Research area keywords

  • Climate Change and Health
  • NCD Prevention and Control
  • Ageing/ Gerontology
  • Cancer Screening & Early Diagnosis
  • Community health development
  • Health Literacy
  • Implementation science
  • Mental Health and Wellbeing

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or