Keynote and invited presentations

• Emily Banks presented her PHAA 50^th Basil Hertzel Oration on ‘Public health is the answer to almost everything’ to the Australasian Epidemiological Association event on Thursday 21 Nov.
• Emily Banks was invited to the UNSW Symposium on Harnessing Great Science for Public Health Impact on 27 November and presented on the ‘Collective experience, collective evidence, collective action: maximising the public health impact of research.’
• Jason Agostino was invited to the Australian Government Department of Health to present “20 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessments. What is their evidence of effectiveness and how can they be improved?” on Thursday 28 November.

Awards

• Ellie Paige has been awarded a Heart Foundation Collaboration and Exchange Award to travel to Cambridge UK next year to work on cardiovascular disease risk score recalibration.
• Muhammed Shahdaat Bin Sayeed was awarded the Australasian Epidemiological Associations travel award to attend the conference held in Brisbane in October

Implementation, Engagement and Outreach

• The Whole of Population Linked Data Project Investigators Meeting was held on November 14 at AIHW and was attended by Rosemary Korda, Melonie Martin, Hsei Di Law, Kay Soga, Karen Bishop, Jenny Welsh, Katie Thurber, Ray Lovett, Bianca Calabria, Danielle Butler, Emily Banks, Rosemary Knight and Ellie Paige.
• Kamalini participated and spoke at the Asian Development Bank meetings last week as part of the visit by Dr Patrick Osewe, ADB’s Chief of the Health Sector Group. She was also on the panel after his seminar for the Dean’s Medical Moonshot lecture series on “Healthcare for all: managing the upcoming health tsunami in Asia and the Pacific.”
• Emily Banks and Jason Agostino a national stakeholders workshop on absolute CVD risk assessment together with the Heart Foundation on the 29^th November. The workshop was attended by over 25 experts on cardiovascular disease prevention from across Australia and New Zealand.
• Ellie Paige has been appointed to the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance Big Data Flagship advisory group.
• Jason Agostino has been appointed to the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance Implementation Flagship Advisory Group.
• Ellie Paige attended 'Science meets Parliament' event on 26 & 27 November as an early career researcher representative of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance.
• Rosemary Korda participated in the Heart Foundation Vanguard Grant Stakeholder Meeting on absolute CVD risk surveillance,  at the Sunshine Coast Primary Healthcare Network. 
• Katie Thurber and Rosemary Korda (with others from RSPH) participated in a half-day meeting at the National Indigenous Australians Agency to workshop a new project on housing and child development
• The Mayi Kuwayu project held their annual face-to-face investigator meeting on the 31 October.
• The Enhancing Absolute CVD Risk Assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples project held their investigator meeting on 21 November.
• Jason Agostino and Emily Banks attended the Heart Foundation stakeholder workshop at the Shine Dome looking at ways to improve management for people living with CVD.
• Jenny Welsh attended a research translation symposium with NHMRC on 19 & 20 November.
• Emily Banks attended a series of workshops in Melbourne held by the Department of Health on The National Preventive Health Strategy on 6, 7 & 8 November.
• Jason Agostino presented the finding on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessments to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Faculty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.
• The project team for Enhancing Absolute CVD Risk Assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples met with the Australian Government Department of Health’s Primary Health Care Reporting Section and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare National Key Performance Indicator section to discuss findings from their recent report into clinical decision support for enhancing CVD prevention.
• Jason Agostino attended the Good Medicine Better Health Advisory Group meeting in Darwin on 7 November to discuss education programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Health Practitioners.
• Emily Banks and Cathy Day attended a Big Data Workshop at University of Sydney on Tuesday 26 November
• Emily Banks, Jason Agostino and Ellie Paige attended the CVD Risk Stakeholder workshop with the Heart Foundation held at Menzies Library on Friday 29 November.

New staff

• The EPP Group welcomes three new staff members to the team. Saliu Balogun, Andrea Timothy and Katie Beckwith.

Other news

• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) collaborated with 45 and Up Study researchers at the Australian National University (Emily Banks & Grace Joshy) to explore the use of data from this study to estimate the national burden due to tobacco use. Data from the 45 and Up Study are used in sensitivity analysis to investigate the impact of Australian-specific effect size data on the estimates of burden attributable to direct tobacco use (for exposure to current and past smoking.

Acknowledgement in the citation: The authors would like to acknowledge the data and methodological advice provided by Emily Banks and Grace Joshy from the 45 and Up Study. This study is managed by the Sax Institute, in collaboration with its partners: Cancer Council NSW (the major partner), the National Heart Foundation of Australia (NSW Division), the NSW Ministry of Health, the NSW Department of Family and Community Services—Ageing, Carers and the Disability Council NSW, and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.

Citation: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2019. Burden of tobacco use in Australia: Australian Burden of Disease Study 2015. Australian Burden of Disease series no. 21. Cat. no. BOD 20. Canberra: AIHW. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/burden-of-disease/burden-of-tobacco-use-in-australia/contents/table-of-contents