February report for Epidemiology for Policy and Practice

6 February 2019

Good News

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander team have received a Department of Social Services grant for research into “Production of Mental Health Measures Technical Report for the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC)”. Investigators are as follows: Raymond Lovett, Katherine Thurber, Lyndall Strazdins, Terry Dunbar, Maggie Walter, Jill Guthrie, Alison Calear, Phil Batterham, Alice Richardson, Lachlan Russell, Nick Biddle, Ben Edwards, Matthew Gray.
We have received an NHMRC Project Grant titled “Quantifying Mortality Incorporating Multiple Causes of Death: Optimising Data for Policy and Practice” which will be led by Grace Joshy. Other RSPH investigators include Emily Banks, Chalapati Rao and Rosemary Korda. The team will include investigators from the ABS, AIHW and VicBiostat. This is a 3 year project commencing in Feb 2019, which will generate new knowledge on multiple causes of death in Australia, develop methods for reporting and analysis, assess the impact of use, and improve policy and practice.
Welcome to new staff:
- Jennifer Walker is working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Group as a Research Assistant.
- Eva Smeets is working as a Research Assistant for EPP in cardiovascular diseases.
- Holly Vuong is working as a Project Manager in the Humanitarian Health Team.
- Mitchell McMaster is working with Emily Banks as a Research Assistant.

Implementation, Engagement and Outreach

Emily Banks presented at the Women and Heart Disease Roundtable in Sydney on 12 December, which was also attended by Grace Joshy, Jenny Welsh and Melonie Martin.
Rosemary Korda and Emily Banks were invited to give a seminar presentation at AIHW on 6 December on “Using cohort and administrative data to generate policy-relevant evidence for informing improvements in population health”.
Emily Banks, Grace Joshy, Jason Agostino and Ellie Paige attended the Kaat Koort Investigator meeting in Melbourne on 3 December.
Emily Banks gave a presentation on “Big Data, public datasets and research specific cohorts- where to from here?” at the Research Australia University Roundtable on 6 December.
Katie Thurber gave a presentation for the ABC’s Ockham’s Razor on 24 January on “Changing the conversation around Indigenous health”.

Publications – For information - NCEPH document updated.

Agostino J, Butler D, Douglas K, O'Donoughue Jenkins L, Skewes K, Phillips C, Paige E, Sturgiss E, Wade V, Korda R, Lovett R and Banks E. Evidence on how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessments can be enhanced to support best practice cardiovascular disease risk assessment and management. Report to the Australian Government Department of Health. June 2018.
Salagame U, Banks E, O’Connell D, Egger S, Canfell K. Menopausal Hormone Therapy use and breast cancer risk by receptor subtypes: Results from the New South Wales Cancer Lifestyle and Evaluation of Risk (CLEAR) study. PLoS One. 2018;7:13:11:e0205034. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205034.
Morgan A, Joshy G, Schaffer A, Laba TL, Litchfield M, Pearson S, Banks E. Rapid and substantial increases in anticoagulant use and expenditure in Australia following the introduction of new types of oral anticoagulants. PLoS One. 2018;13:12:e0208824. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208824.
Joshy G, Banks E, Lowe A, Wolfe R, Tickle L, Armstrong B, Clements M. Predicting seven-year mortality for use with evidence-based guidelines for Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing: Findings from a large prospective study of 123,697 Australian men. BMJ Open. 2018;8:e022613. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022613.
Qian J, Heywood A, Karki S, Banks E, MacCartney K, Chantrill L, Lui B. Risk of herpes zoster prior to and following cancer diagnosis and treatment: a population-based prospective cohort study. J Infect Dis. 2018 Dec 13. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiy625. [Epub ahead of print].
Sturgiss EA, Boeckxstaens P, Clark AM. Multimorbidity and patient-centred care in the 3D trial. The Lancet. 2019;393:10167:127 doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32527-3.
Sturgiss E, Luig T, Campbell-Scherer DL, Lewanczuk R, Green LA. Using concept maps to compare obesity knowledge between policy makers and primary care researchers in Canada. BMC Research Notes. 2019;12:23. Doi: 10.1186/s13104-018-4042-x.