Improving Health And Wellbeing In The Tasmanian State Service Workfoorce
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$886,921.00
Summary
Workplaces are increasingly being seen as important settings for health promotion interventions to promote health, prevent chronic disease, and improve workforce productivity. This project, which involves researchers at the University of Tasmania in partnership with the Tasmanian Government, aims to assess the effectiveness of a major health and wellbeing program (Healthy@Work) being delivered to all Tasmanian State Service employees and to guide the development of future programs.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100307
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$330,290.00
Summary
Food policies for population health: evidence, influence and accountability. The project aims to investigate ways to improve the development and implementation of policies to create healthy food environments in Australia. Currently, Australian food environments are dominated by cheap, heavily promoted, unhealthy food, and governments are seeking ways to reduce the economic and social burden of diet-related ill-health. Policy changes are needed to create environments that encourage healthy food c ....Food policies for population health: evidence, influence and accountability. The project aims to investigate ways to improve the development and implementation of policies to create healthy food environments in Australia. Currently, Australian food environments are dominated by cheap, heavily promoted, unhealthy food, and governments are seeking ways to reduce the economic and social burden of diet-related ill-health. Policy changes are needed to create environments that encourage healthy food consumption. The project aims to generate new evidence of the economic case for implementation of priority policy options, provide critical insight into the policy process, and identify levers for increasing the accountability of governments for creating healthier food environments. The project intends to identify strategies to improve population health.Read moreRead less
Can Systematically Developed Alcohol Health Warnings Reduce Drinking Intentions And Behaviours?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$782,617.00
Summary
This research will develop differently worded and formatted warnings about a wide range of harms of alcohol and assess adult drinkers’ responses to them, compared to current messages on alcohol containers. The study will use population surveys, discussion groups, message ratings and an experimental study with follow-up to determine the content and format of warnings with the greatest potential to encourage drinkers to reduce their alcohol-related risk.
New Consumer Warnings To Counter Reassurance Based Tobacco Marketing
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$974,713.00
Summary
This research will use consumer feedback to develop warnings about tobacco product attributes (e.g. cigarette filters, ‘smooth’ taste) that mislead smokers about the harms of smoking. We will assess smokers’ responses to these warnings, compared to current warnings on tobacco. The study will use a survey, group discussions, rating scales and an experiment with a follow-up to determine warnings with the greatest potential to correct persistent faulty beliefs about the harms of smoking.
Citizen engagement: Listening to citizens' views about Australia's health system and prevention. This project will yield new and important perspectives from citizens on preventive health and health promotion, which can be used to develop better targeted and more effective prevention and promotion policies and strategies. Citizens views will be investigated in relation to vexed issues such as: new approaches to financing and program delivery, reorienting the health insurance sector, reorienting ....Citizen engagement: Listening to citizens' views about Australia's health system and prevention. This project will yield new and important perspectives from citizens on preventive health and health promotion, which can be used to develop better targeted and more effective prevention and promotion policies and strategies. Citizens views will be investigated in relation to vexed issues such as: new approaches to financing and program delivery, reorienting the health insurance sector, reorienting the health system to focus more on prevention and health promotion, improving current approaches of consumer participation in prevention and chronic disease management, tackling broader issues in public policy trade-offs between health and non-health, diversifying workforce roles and involving health professionals in prevention and promotion.Read moreRead less
Developing methods for benefit measurement in health-related economic analyses and their use in selecting public health promotional programs. The program involves the creation, validation and use of a suite of instruments for evaluating outcomes of health promotional programs, including adult and childhood obesity, depression and smoking - areas that are universally recognised as being of importance for the Australian community. The program will provide multiple scoring algorithms for each of th ....Developing methods for benefit measurement in health-related economic analyses and their use in selecting public health promotional programs. The program involves the creation, validation and use of a suite of instruments for evaluating outcomes of health promotional programs, including adult and childhood obesity, depression and smoking - areas that are universally recognised as being of importance for the Australian community. The program will provide multiple scoring algorithms for each of the instruments in order to test the sensitivity of results to assumptions made about social values, and will produce Australian estimates of the person trade-off weights used in the Australian and Victorian Burden of Disease studies (which presently use Dutch PTO weights). Read moreRead less
Evaluation in health promotion: gathering evidence to improve effectiveness. Effective disease prevention and health promotion to address the public health challenges facing Australia requires a strong evidence base for policy and practice. Evaluation of programs in natural contexts is a vital source of this evidence, valuable for improving strategy design and delivery, building sustainability and guiding funding. The aim of this project is to determine the strengths and limitations of evaluatio ....Evaluation in health promotion: gathering evidence to improve effectiveness. Effective disease prevention and health promotion to address the public health challenges facing Australia requires a strong evidence base for policy and practice. Evaluation of programs in natural contexts is a vital source of this evidence, valuable for improving strategy design and delivery, building sustainability and guiding funding. The aim of this project is to determine the strengths and limitations of evaluation by health promotion agencies, and to identify the roles of individual, organisational and system-level factors in relation to evaluation practice and use. This knowledge is expected to guide efforts to build capacity for evaluation, improve systems for organisational learning, and enable evidence gathering to improve effectiveness.Read moreRead less
Geelong Healthy Eating and Active Play for Under Fives. Helping children achieve a healthier weight is a major national health priority. About 30% of 4 and 5 year old children are already overweight or obese. Action is urgently needed to prevent further increases yet there have been very few studies in the area. The Geelong Under-5s project in will measure the impact of a comprehensive intervention designed to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity by modifying day care and kindergarte ....Geelong Healthy Eating and Active Play for Under Fives. Helping children achieve a healthier weight is a major national health priority. About 30% of 4 and 5 year old children are already overweight or obese. Action is urgently needed to prevent further increases yet there have been very few studies in the area. The Geelong Under-5s project in will measure the impact of a comprehensive intervention designed to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity by modifying day care and kindergarten settings, by increasing the capacity of staff to teach and model healthy eating and physical activity patterns, and by educating parents at receptive moments in their child's life.Read moreRead less
The effectiveness of health impact assessments conducted in Australia and New Zealand. Health impact assessment (HIA) has been internationally recognised as one of a limited number of preventive interventions that can be used to enhance the health benefits of health and other sector activities - policies, programs and projects - before they are implemented. The issue of how effective HIA is in changing decision-making and implementation remains largely unresolved however. This study will exami ....The effectiveness of health impact assessments conducted in Australia and New Zealand. Health impact assessment (HIA) has been internationally recognised as one of a limited number of preventive interventions that can be used to enhance the health benefits of health and other sector activities - policies, programs and projects - before they are implemented. The issue of how effective HIA is in changing decision-making and implementation remains largely unresolved however. This study will examine the effectiveness HIAs that have been completed in Australia and New Zealand between 2005 and 2009. The findings will guide the use of HIA by the public and private sectors in Australia and internationally, and improve HIA's ability to strengthen Australia's social and economic fabric.Read moreRead less
Regulating Relations: Forming Families Inside and Outside of Law's Reach. Australia is wrestling with the complex challenges posed by the increase in cross-border reproductive care. This project asks: what are the causes and consequences of Australians being excluded from, or choosing to evade, regulated assisted reproductive treatment? The research aims to identify barriers to the pathways to licensed assisted reproductive treatment and motivations for evasion of regulation. It entails a series ....Regulating Relations: Forming Families Inside and Outside of Law's Reach. Australia is wrestling with the complex challenges posed by the increase in cross-border reproductive care. This project asks: what are the causes and consequences of Australians being excluded from, or choosing to evade, regulated assisted reproductive treatment? The research aims to identify barriers to the pathways to licensed assisted reproductive treatment and motivations for evasion of regulation. It entails a series of interlinked case studies reflecting the life-cycle of family formation in assisted conception. The aim is to develop solutions for more responsive legal frameworks that encourage beneficial clinical and ethical practices and contain harmful ones through inclusion rather than exclusion.Read moreRead less