2026 McAuley Orator Associate Professor Chris Paton, explaining a prototype for a 3D agent-based hospital simulator that will enable Starship Children’s Hospital staff and health-professional students to experiment with the ways changes in staffing, workload, capacity and clinical processes affect patient care.
There will be no shortage of galvanising discourse at next month’s 18th Otago Global Health Institute (OGHI) conference – such is the magnitude of this year’s theme: ‘Information, misinformation and global health’.
Conference organisers Professor Stephen Knowles (Department of Economics), Dr Lena Tan (Department of Politics), and Dr Su Faigan (Manager, Otago Global Health Institute) say the topic is ever more crucial in this media-saturated era because information – and its unreliable cousin ‘misinformation’ – have the power to shape health outcomes.
“Information and misinformation are major issues in global health, and I look forward to hearing about how these challenges may be addressed." – Professor Stephen Knowles
“Misinformation can spread rapidly and undermine trust in science, with consequences such as vaccine hesitancy. Yet advances in artificial intelligence and other digital technologies also offer powerful new opportunities to improve disease surveillance, healthcare, and public health communication,” says Professor John Crump, Director of the Otago Global Health Institute.
Delving into this topic, this year’s McAuley Oration will be delivered by Associate Professor Chris Paton (Liggins Institute and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Auckland). He will speak on ‘AI for global health: opportunities, risks, and future developments.’
“Artificial Intelligence has begun to be embedded into clinical practice around the world. Ambient AI scribes record and summarise patient consultations; radiology AI systems can interpret X-ray images in seconds; and patients are turning to ChatGPT in their droves with their healthcare questions,” Chris says.
He’ll share the latest research on AI in healthcare and discuss how AI might be used to safely support healthcare provision in resource constrained settings. He’ll also tackle a range of questions therein: How good are these AI systems? Do they preserve patient privacy? Can they support low-income countries to provide higher quality healthcare services? What is next for healthcare AI?
In a keynote address that bears closely on the OGHI 2026 theme, Associate Professor Esther Willing (Kōhatu Centre for Hauora Māori, University of Otago) will speak on vaccine hesitancy in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Extending beyond the boundaries of the conference theme, Professor Rovina Ruslami (Biomedical Science, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia) will deliver a keynote talk on the treatment of tuberculosis, and Faumuina Professor Fa’afetai Sopoaga will convene a panel on Pacific health.
In total, there will be 25 oral presentations and up to 14 posters covering a wide range of global health topics.
With members from all four academic divisions of the University of Otago, and partners around the world, OGHI casts its research gaze across a wide range of disciplines. The annual OGHI conference brings together leading and emerging researchers, practitioners, and advocates, to meet, discuss topical issues, and share findings.
Stephen Knowles, chair of the conference organising committee, says he’s poised and ready to absorb all the rich insights that will emerge over the course of the two OGHI conference days.
“Information and misinformation are major issues in global health, and I look forward to hearing about how these challenges may be addressed. It’s always great to see the way conference delegates from a wide range of academic disciplines engage with each other in a meaningful way, and the valuable human stories that emerge.”
- The 18th Otago Global Health Institute conference will take place at Te Kura Pakihi Otago Business School from 24-25 November 2026.
The McAuley Oration (a free public lecture)
When: 4pm, Tuesday 24 November 2026
Where: Archway 2 Lecture Theatre, University of Otago, 290 Leith Walk, Dunedin North
Livestream
2026 OGHI conference
The 18th annual OGHI conference brings together leading and emerging researchers, practitioners, and advocates to discuss issues around information, misinformation and global health.
More about the conference