Alone in a crowd: Supporting older Australians managing loneliness. The project provides crucial understandings and knowledge about loneliness as understood by older Australians and support/service providers, and solutions to assist them manage it. The findings will provide immediate practical outcomes that can be implemented by support/service providers, whilst also providing information that can assist policy makers and managers in the service provision area. The findings will enhance the heal ....Alone in a crowd: Supporting older Australians managing loneliness. The project provides crucial understandings and knowledge about loneliness as understood by older Australians and support/service providers, and solutions to assist them manage it. The findings will provide immediate practical outcomes that can be implemented by support/service providers, whilst also providing information that can assist policy makers and managers in the service provision area. The findings will enhance the health and well-being of older Australians with concomitant social and economic benefits. The study contributes to ensuring the optimum use and deployment of finite health and social resources.Read moreRead less
Coverage with Evidence Development: Application to pharmaceutical reimbursement decisions. Some new medicines produce only a small improvement in health but have considerable costs. When these medicines are trialled on only small numbers of people, uncertainty results about the value of the medicine, which can create problems for decision makers. Funding medicines where there is uncertainty may lead to harm when medicines are later found to be unsafe, or waste millions of dollars when they are ....Coverage with Evidence Development: Application to pharmaceutical reimbursement decisions. Some new medicines produce only a small improvement in health but have considerable costs. When these medicines are trialled on only small numbers of people, uncertainty results about the value of the medicine, which can create problems for decision makers. Funding medicines where there is uncertainty may lead to harm when medicines are later found to be unsafe, or waste millions of dollars when they are overpriced relative to effectiveness. Not funding medicines may disadvantage patients in whom the medicines are effective. Methods to enable access to medicines while reducing uncertainty will offer significant benefit to patients, clinicians and taxpayers. Read moreRead less
Changing Places: An exploration of factors influencing the move of older people from retirement villages to residential aged care. Older Australians living in retirement villages, an increasing community population segment, make choices both about the place at which they live, and the support needed to optimise health and wellbeing at that place. Changing places for this group often involves moving from retirement village to residential aged care facility. This study explores how and why this ....Changing Places: An exploration of factors influencing the move of older people from retirement villages to residential aged care. Older Australians living in retirement villages, an increasing community population segment, make choices both about the place at which they live, and the support needed to optimise health and wellbeing at that place. Changing places for this group often involves moving from retirement village to residential aged care facility. This study explores how and why this change occurs, how it might be avoided, and, when the move is unavoidable what can improve the moving process. Findings will inform innovations in policy, service and health care provision designed to facilitate appropriate ageing in place congruent with best practice principles.Read moreRead less
Support needs assessment: a developmental model for use in support, training and funding for individuals with single and multiple disabilities. This research project aims to construct and trial a new model for the assessment of the support needs of persons with disabilities. It addresses a number of critical deficiencies which recent research has shown to undermine the reliability, validity and usefulness of existing support needs instruments. Specifically, it is proposed to collect data that ....Support needs assessment: a developmental model for use in support, training and funding for individuals with single and multiple disabilities. This research project aims to construct and trial a new model for the assessment of the support needs of persons with disabilities. It addresses a number of critical deficiencies which recent research has shown to undermine the reliability, validity and usefulness of existing support needs instruments. Specifically, it is proposed to collect data that will inform the determination of the support needs of people with different kinds and combinations of disabilities. Variations in maintenance and intervention supports over time and context will be considered. The assessment system planned will have the flexibility to meet a number of potential user objectives.Read moreRead less
Implementing guidelines to prevent chronic disease in the community. The burden of chronic disease in Australia has resulted in prevention of chronic disease being an important priority for the Australian health system. High quality evidence for preventing chronic disease exists; however the practice falls short of the evidence. Finding ways to implement the evidence for preventing chronic disease is an urgent national need. This study aims to apply the evidence for preventing chronic disease in ....Implementing guidelines to prevent chronic disease in the community. The burden of chronic disease in Australia has resulted in prevention of chronic disease being an important priority for the Australian health system. High quality evidence for preventing chronic disease exists; however the practice falls short of the evidence. Finding ways to implement the evidence for preventing chronic disease is an urgent national need. This study aims to apply the evidence for preventing chronic disease in practice. It will generate data and validate a model on how to effectively improve the uptake of guidelines by both practitioners and consumers. This project is of national and community benefit because it will enable the potential of preventing chronic disease to be realised.Read moreRead less
Options, Opportunities and Older people: An exploration of care transitions of older people. Older Australians experience transition points in type and level of support needed to age in their place of choice. Transition points refer to some form of destabilisation in the life of the older person resulting in a changed level of care required along the continuum of care options and opportunities available. This multi-stage, multi-State, qualitative study will determine what constitutes a 'good t ....Options, Opportunities and Older people: An exploration of care transitions of older people. Older Australians experience transition points in type and level of support needed to age in their place of choice. Transition points refer to some form of destabilisation in the life of the older person resulting in a changed level of care required along the continuum of care options and opportunities available. This multi-stage, multi-State, qualitative study will determine what constitutes a 'good transition' for older people, how 'transition points' are identified by consumers and service providers, and what happens after such identification. The study contributes to prevention and early intervention responses enabling older people to age in place wherever possible.Read moreRead less
Effectiveness of Intervention Strategies to Promote Physical Activity Among Insufficiently Active Adults. This project will determine the cost-effectiveness of 2 types of physical activity (PA) interventions based around the workplace. 480 participants will be randomly assigned to PA intervention groups or controls. Interventions are either a (1) self-regulated, pedometer-based program or a (2) semi-structured, 40-day initiation to more moderately-vigorous PA. Both are designed to increase self- ....Effectiveness of Intervention Strategies to Promote Physical Activity Among Insufficiently Active Adults. This project will determine the cost-effectiveness of 2 types of physical activity (PA) interventions based around the workplace. 480 participants will be randomly assigned to PA intervention groups or controls. Interventions are either a (1) self-regulated, pedometer-based program or a (2) semi-structured, 40-day initiation to more moderately-vigorous PA. Both are designed to increase self-efficacy and impact on positive PA behaviours. Long-term, behavioural change and job-related outcomes will be evaluated by following participants for 12 months after the interventions.Read moreRead less