Good News

• Kate Doery, Research Assistant, started on 11 June. Kate will be assisting us with our work around deficit discourse, data sovereignty, and the Mayi Kuwayu Study.
• Liz Sturgiss, Research Fellow, started on 18 June.  Liz has implementation expertise and will be working with the cardiovascular disease risk team. 
• Joanne Thandrayen, started on 18 June, and has a background in statistics and mathematics. She will be working on Person Centred Outcomes and with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander team biostatisticians.  Joanne will also be convening the Fun of Epidemiology Course for second semester.

Implementation, Engagement and Outreach

• The Aboriginal Absolute CVD Risk paper was launched at Parliament House on 25 June by The Hon Ken Wyatt AM, MP, Minister for Indigenous Health.  Emily Banks and Ray Lovett were interviewed by ABC Radio National for the Health Report, as well by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander media, regarding the paper (see photo below).
• Emily Banks gave a talk at the Women with Heart Award in 2018 Presentation and was interviewed by Channel 9 News.
• Rosemary Korda met with the Australian Bureau of Statistics about possible revisions to the next census. 
• Emily Banks, Rosemary Korda, Grace Joshy, Ellie Paige and Melonie Martin conducted staff training at the ABS as part of the partnership grant on whole-of-population linked data.
• The Aboriginal Reference Group met on 4 June.

Conferences

• Emily Banks was on a panel for The Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance about how Australia is travelling on chronic disease prevention.
• Emily Banks attended the First Nations Ear Health Round Table in Sydney.

Publications –

• Calabria B, Korda R, Lovett R, Fernando P, Martin T, Malamoo L, Welsh J & Banks E.  Absolute CVD risk and use of lipid-lowering therapy among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Med J Aust || doi: 10.5694/mja17.00897. Published online: 25 June 2018. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2018/209/1/absolute-cardiovascular-disease-risk-and-lipid-lowering-therapy-among-aboriginal

• Olive L, Abhayaratna W, Byrne D, Richardson A, Telford R.  Do self-reported stress and depressive symptoms effect endothelial function in healthy children? The LOOK Longitudinal Study.  PLoS ONE 13(4): e0196137. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196137. 23 April 2018.

• Jones R, Thurber K, Lovett R, et al. Study protocol: Our Cultures Count, the Mayi Kuwayu Study, a national longitudinal study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing. BMJ Open Volume 8 Issue 6. Accepted 10 May. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/6/e023861?rss=1