Asmita Manchha

Dr Asmita Manchha is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Unspoken, Unheard, Unmet: Improving Access to Preventative Health Care through Better Conversations about Care team (UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences) and an Early Career Researcher. She was awarded a PhD from the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2022, which examined the nature and consequences of the stigma of working in aged care. Asmita also has a first-class Bachelor of Business Management Honours’ degree from the UQ and Bachelor of Commerce from the Australian National University.

At the heart of Asmita’s research is her passion for developing practical, evidence-based resources to empower people who receive and provide aged care services. Her research themes include: (a) Understanding approaches to challenge stigma (i.e, negative attitudes, stereotypes) associated with aged care to promote a greater recognition of the aged care sector, (b) Development of a fit-for-purpose communication screening tool and resources for aged care workers to help older Australians have better conversations about aged care, (c) Exploration of interventions to support the recruitment and retention of people working in aged care with a strengths-based focus on career development, and (d) Application of language-based methods and frameworks from Systemic Functional Linguistics to examine complex social issues in the field of gerontology.

Asmita has vast experience in conducting qualitative and mixed-methods research pertaining to reframing negative perceptions about working in aged care, which have been published in The Gerontologist and Journal of Applied Gerontology. She is actively involved in the gerontology research community including the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), where she is the QLD Divisional Secretary.