Member blog: Dr Mohammed Jawad

Finding my place in Public Health 

I didn’t start out with a clear plan to work in public health, let alone to become a Deputy Director of Public Health for Barnet Council. As a medical student, I spent a lot of time informally engaging with my local community who would come to me for health advice. Those conversations were honest and grounded, but over time they also became frustrating. I began to realise that good health advice alone was not enough to improve health. People were trying to make the ‘right’ choices, but those choices were shaped and often limited by factors outside their control. 

That was probably the point where things clicked for me. I realised that health was not solely shaped by healthcare. It is also shaped by the environments people return to, the opportunities they have, and the constraints they live with day to day. I saw patients discharged from hospital back into the very circumstances that had contributed to their illness in the first place. Whilst my clinical work was certainly meaningful, I had a strong desire to look beyond the clinical and towards the wider system. 

That’s when I found public health as a career option, and that desire has stayed with me ever since. For me, public health is fundamentally about fairness. Not fairness in an abstract sense, but in a very practical one. Too often, people are expected to run the race of life without having started in the same place. Some are not even on the track to begin with. The chances of living a long, healthy life should not be so heavily patterned by where you grow up, the education you received, or your postcode. But unfortunately, they are. 

In my current role, I spend my time trying to create the conditions for better health and wellbeing across communities. That involves commissioning services, working with partners across the system, and contributing to strategic decision making. It is less about treating individuals and more about shaping the context in which people can stay well in the first place. 

What I enjoy most is working on the more complex, ‘wicked’ problems. These are issues that can appear simple on the surface but are deeply rooted in stigma, politics, and long-standing inequality. They are the kinds of challenges where there is no single solution, and where progress requires persistence, partnership, and a willingness to navigate uncertainty. 

This is where the Association of Directors of Public Health has been so important. It provides a space where the public health workforce can come together, share perspectives, and contribute to shaping national direction. It is also a network that offers support, insight, and reassurance, particularly when dealing with complex or contentious issues. 

My move into a leadership role was not something I planned. From the outside, it seems daunting – something you don’t think you could ever do. The reality has been quite different – it has been more like a series of small opportunities that I stepped into, met with some hesitation at first but then embraced after a bit of encouragement . I realised you don’t need to aspire to be like the leaders you worked with – you develop your own approach, grow into your own style, and find your own way of bringing people along with you.