Good News

The Bushfire Health Survey led by Rachael Rodney Harris has been distributed to 10,000 randomly selected households in the ACT and region; there have been over 800 responses within the first two weeks.

New grants/funding

ECH members are involved in new funding applications to the College of Health and Medicine related to various aspects of the health response to COVID-19

Keynote and invited presentations

Jo Lane gave an invited presentation at the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence NeuroImmunology Seminar series on the 3^rd March on “Our Health in Our Hands: improving personalised care in multiple sclerosis”.

Jo Lane gave an invited presentation at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, Faculty of Medicine (Neurology), University of British Columbia (UBC) MS Connect Session on the 10^th March on “Improving personalised care in multiple sclerosis”.

Rachael Rodney Harris spoke about vitamin D metabolism and supplementation as an invited speaker at the Transition Cow Management Advisor Meeting, held in Melbourne on 28 February.

Outreach and engagement

Aparna Lal contributed to a policy brief titled “Water reform for all: a national response to a water emergency. Authors (in alphabetical order): Daniel Connell, Matt Colloff, Katherine Daniell, Quentin Grafton*, Aparna Lal, Virginia Marshall, Jamie Pittock, Katherine Taylor, Paul Tregoning, Lorrae van Kerkhoff, John Williams, Paul Wyrwoll

Sotiris Vardoulakis spoke about the far-reaching effects of air pollution and climate change at the Climate Update event organised by the ANU Climate Change Institute and RMIT in Melbourne on 12 March.

Media releases/interest

Sotiris Vardoulakis has given media interviews (ABC Radio, Adelaide Radio, etc.) on the effect of coronavirus lockdowns on air pollution.

Soritis Vardoulakis has published an article entitled “The health impact of bushfires and preparing for future crises” in the Asia and the Pacific Policy Forum: https://www.policyforum.net/the-health-impact-of-bushfires-and-preparing-for-future-crises/

Rachael Rodney Harris has been speaking with ABC local news, Hit106 Radio and the Riot Act about the Bushfire Health Survey.

New staff

Aaron McMillan has started with the ECH team as an applied statistician to help on the SEDS Study and other projects. He will be with us one day a week (Thursdays) so please make him welcome if you see him in the virtual tea room. 

Papers accepted/published:

1. Hughes AM, Ponsonby A-L, Dear K, Dwyer T, Taylor B, van der Mei I, Valery P, Ausimmune Investigator Group, Lucas RM. Childhood infections, vaccinations, and tonsillectomy and risk of first clinical diagnosis of CNS demyelination in the Ausimmune Study. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders (accepted 16 Mar 2020)
2. Lauriola P., Crabbe H., Behbod B., Yip F., Medina S., Semenza J., Vardoulakis S., Kass D., Zeka A., Khonelidze I., Ashworth M., de Hoogh K., Shi X., Staatsen B., Knudsen L.E., Fletcher T., Houthuijs D., Leonardi G., 2020. Advancing Global Health through Environmental and Public Health Tracking. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17, 1976; doi:10.3390/ijerph17061976
3. McEwen S, Kaczmarek M, Hundy R, Lal A. Comparison of heat-illness associations estimated with different temperature metrics in the Australian Capital Territory, 2006-2016. International Journal of Biometeorology (accepted March 2020)

Progress on research projects

PFAS Health Study

The survey data arrived and is currently being analysed, along with the blood serum PFAS test results.

The ANU Bushfire Health Survey went live this month and has received over 1200 responses from the community. The aim of the survey is to understand the effects of bushfire smoke on physical and mental health and lifestyle of the capital and surrounding region. All NCEPH members who live in Canberra or the surrounding region are invited to please participate here: https://rsph.anu.edu.au/research/projects/bushfire-health-survey