Rate My Professor Jane Taylor

Associate Professor Jane Taylor is an accomplished health promotion professional and educator with 30 years of experience. She serves as the Public Health Discipline Lead and Associate Professor in Public Health at the School of Health, University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC), where she oversees a team of experts in health promotion, environmental health, epidemiology, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, and health economics. Her academic qualifications include a PhD in Public Health from the University of the Sunshine Coast, a Master of Health Promotion from Curtin University, a Graduate Diploma in International Health from Curtin University, and a Bachelor of Education from the Tasmanian State Institute of Technology. Throughout her career, Taylor has focused on advancing critical health promotion theory and practice, public health education, program evaluation, community health assessment, interprofessional education, and culturally safe health curricula.

Taylor's research strengthens the theoretical foundations of health promotion through a critical practice lens to inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of health policies and programs, with an emphasis on social justice and health equity. She developed the Red Lotus Critical Health Promotion Model and the Quality Assessment Tool for Critical Health Promotion (QATCHEPP), tools adopted by practitioners to foster ethical, ecological approaches. Her scholarly contributions include co-authoring the textbook Promoting Health: The Primary Health Care Approach (8th edition, 2025, with Lily O'Hara), and highly cited publications such as 'The war on obesity: a social determinant of health' (2006, 115 citations), 'Human rights casualties from the “war on obesity”: Why focusing on body weight is inconsistent with a human rights approach to health' (2012, 105 citations), 'Values and principles evident in current health promotion practice' (2007, 87 citations), and 'The Red Lotus Health Promotion Model: a new model for holistic, ecological, salutogenic health promotion practice' (2007, 62 citations). In education, she employs constructivist methods, the flipped classroom, and mentors academics. Currently, she leads a project evaluating health science staff preparedness to integrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives across nine professions and heads the School of Health Professions Education Research Cluster.