Outreach and engagement

Katie Thurber and the ATSI team completed a review of trends in cigarette use and e-cigarette use by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, for the Department of Health. Through undertaking this work, the team identified substantial biases in the data on youth (16-17 years) smoking behaviours – data which is used to monitor progress against key smoking indicators (i.e. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth smoking prevalence). The team is collaborating with the ABS to understand the impact of this bias across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous surveys.

Rachael Rodney Harris has recently completed the data collection for the Bushfire and Smoke study in the ACT investigating the effects of smoke on health, wellbeing, lifestyle in the ACT. The study received over 2000 responses. Rachael also secured COVID-19 funding grants – a link between Research School of Psychology and RSPH.

On the 29 April 2020 Kamalini Lokuge was as panel member for the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences on the COVID-19 webinar: Where to from here? Charting a course for resilience and recovery.
https://aahms.org/events/covid-19-where-to-from-here-charting-a-course-for-resilience-and-recovery/

Media releases/interest

On the 10 May 2020 Kamalini Lokuge was interviewed on 60 Minutes Australia. Fears of a deadly COVID-19 second wave if lockdown is lifted too early. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGghR1nmeQU

Papers accepted/published:

Zhang Y, Joshy G, Glass K, Banks E. Physical functional limitations and psychological distress in people with and without colorectal cancer: Findings from a large Australian Study. Journal of Cancer Survivorship. Accepted 30 May 2020.

Lokuge et al. 23 April 2020. Exit strategies: optimising feasible surveillance for detection, elimination and ongoing prevention of COVID-19 community transmission. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.19.20071217