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
Food/body encounters: New approaches and alternative solutions to obesity prevention and policy. There is growing recognition of the need for new ways to tackle the obesity problem, and for forms of intervention that move beyond the limitations of individual behavioural changes. This project provides a paradigm for re-orientating how we have come to know obesity by investigating the cultural and institutional processes that shape everyday food and activity practices. Understanding and intervenin ....Food/body encounters: New approaches and alternative solutions to obesity prevention and policy. There is growing recognition of the need for new ways to tackle the obesity problem, and for forms of intervention that move beyond the limitations of individual behavioural changes. This project provides a paradigm for re-orientating how we have come to know obesity by investigating the cultural and institutional processes that shape everyday food and activity practices. Understanding and intervening in these dynamics of social practice are central to the challenges of reversing trends in the prevalence of obesity.Read moreRead less
Australian family diversity: Individual experiences and public attitudes. Whilst Australian families continue to diversify, public perceptions and policies related to families appear entrenched in a normative understanding of family. This project will provide a genealogy of public and policy accounts of Australian families, map public perceptions of a diverse range of family structures and modes of family formation, and identify how differing cohorts of Australian families talk about their famil ....Australian family diversity: Individual experiences and public attitudes. Whilst Australian families continue to diversify, public perceptions and policies related to families appear entrenched in a normative understanding of family. This project will provide a genealogy of public and policy accounts of Australian families, map public perceptions of a diverse range of family structures and modes of family formation, and identify how differing cohorts of Australian families talk about their families. Together, these strands will produce a unified body of knowledge about Australian families that will allow for the identification of factors influencing public perceptions, and thus the development of policy initiatives aimed at recognising family diversity and challenging social norms.Read moreRead less
Social relations and social engagement in older adulthood: implications for health, well being and cognition. This project will examine the nature of changes in peoples social networks that occur with age and the effects of these changes on health and well being in later life. The project will use information collected as part of several ongoing Australian studies of ageing and will have implications for social policy.
Past trends and future risk of climate extremes in southern Australia. Prolonged droughts and periods of heightened flood and fire risk present a major challenge for Australia’s society and economy. This proposal aims to better resolve the causes and risks of decadal climate extremes through a suite of high quality records of temperature, rainfall/evaporation and humidity in southern Australia over 2000 years. Novel geochemical analyses will be developed and applied to lake sediments – method de ....Past trends and future risk of climate extremes in southern Australia. Prolonged droughts and periods of heightened flood and fire risk present a major challenge for Australia’s society and economy. This proposal aims to better resolve the causes and risks of decadal climate extremes through a suite of high quality records of temperature, rainfall/evaporation and humidity in southern Australia over 2000 years. Novel geochemical analyses will be developed and applied to lake sediments – method development which is likely to benefit climate, minerals and biosecurity research. New knowledge of mechanisms underlying climate variability is expected to benefit fundamental research, while future-facing models will allow land managers and policy makers to better anticipate extraordinary climate events.Read moreRead less
Prospects for quality work and gender equality in frontline care work. Despite policy concerns about unmet demand for paid care, frontline care workers generally have poorer conditions than workers in other feminised sectors. This project will investigate the regulatory options to improve the quality of care work to build Australian expertise and knowledge about the links between job quality and quality of care services.
From Biodiversity to Health: Performing the first genetic audits of Australia. This project will establish a new technology for the rapid measurement of environmental biodiversity, whether that be in natural resources such as forests, or pathogens in water supplies or hospitals. The method is fast, low-cost and will provide much higher resolution than current methods. It will provide some of the first ever comprehensive environmental impact assessments, permitting responsible resource developmen ....From Biodiversity to Health: Performing the first genetic audits of Australia. This project will establish a new technology for the rapid measurement of environmental biodiversity, whether that be in natural resources such as forests, or pathogens in water supplies or hospitals. The method is fast, low-cost and will provide much higher resolution than current methods. It will provide some of the first ever comprehensive environmental impact assessments, permitting responsible resource development with major benefits to industry and the economy. It also provides a common platform for government agencies, from Department of Environment and Heritage to the Federal Police, and will create new tools to improve water management, biosecurity, forensics/policing and human health, as reflected by the wide range of industry partners supporting the project.Read moreRead less
Critical conversations: An ethnographic study of Australian organ donation. There is an urgent need for new culturally sensitive ways of improving organ donation rates in Australia, which are lower in culturally and linguistically diverse groups. The project aims to reorient the research focus from decisions made prior to death to the actual times and clinical spaces in which these decisions occur. Through a comparative cross-cultural analysis this research will provide essential knowledge that ....Critical conversations: An ethnographic study of Australian organ donation. There is an urgent need for new culturally sensitive ways of improving organ donation rates in Australia, which are lower in culturally and linguistically diverse groups. The project aims to reorient the research focus from decisions made prior to death to the actual times and clinical spaces in which these decisions occur. Through a comparative cross-cultural analysis this research will provide essential knowledge that will inform innovative approaches to understanding organ donation. The outcomes will have a strong bearing on how organ donation communication, professional protocols, and ultimately, organ donation practice evolve in Australia. Read moreRead less
Dead Heart Beating? Landscape, Climate and People in Desert Australia. This project aims to undertake the first detailed investigation of the archaeology, landscape history and paleoenvironment of dryland lakes in the Simpson, Strzelecki and Stuart Stony Deserts in Central Australia. Using cutting edge methods, the project expects to discover new archaeological sites, provide a new climate record for inland Australia and develop innovative new analytical and field techniques. Expected benefits a ....Dead Heart Beating? Landscape, Climate and People in Desert Australia. This project aims to undertake the first detailed investigation of the archaeology, landscape history and paleoenvironment of dryland lakes in the Simpson, Strzelecki and Stuart Stony Deserts in Central Australia. Using cutting edge methods, the project expects to discover new archaeological sites, provide a new climate record for inland Australia and develop innovative new analytical and field techniques. Expected benefits also include the development of new cutting-edge methodologies for the investigation of Australian desert landscapes, comprehensive baseline data of how this region has evolved prior to European colonization and resolving why no Pleistocene aged archaeological sites have been found in the region.Read moreRead less
Palaeoclimate reconstructions from the isotopic signatures of fossilised leaf waxes. This project develops a method for using the chemical signature of fossilised leaf waxes to reconstruct hydrologic change in south-eastern Australia during the Holocene (last 10,000 years) and Eocene (56-34 million years ago). Understanding climate in the geologic past is essential for testing models and projecting future climate with rising carbon dioxide.