Program leader: Gail Garvey
Program manager: Liz Izquierdo
Goal: To enhance the effective implementation of techniques, tools and resources that will support the users of research to deliver primary care that reduces risk, promotes health and provides best practice in the prevention, early detection and management of chronic illness.
What’s the program about?
‘Healthy Start, Healthy Life’ is focused on improving the delivery of health care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The program aims to develop knowledge and evaluate tools and resources to reduce risk, promote health and support best practice in the prevention, early detection and management of chronic illness. Research supported by our predecessor organisation, the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health, has established that chronic conditions – such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease – account for 70 per cent of the health gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians.[1]
As well as supporting the development of new approaches to tackle chronic illness across the life-cycle, Program 1 aims to find ways to make the transition of an innovation from research into widespread practice as straightforward and rapid as possible.
Download Program 1 poster (Nov 2011)
Download Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Health at the Lowitja Institute poster, presented on 25 October at the National Indigenous Womenb's Health Workshop, Melbourne
Scope
Priority areas include:
- Reducing the incidence of chronic illness, e.g. through encouraging better nutrition and greater exercise.
- Lowering the risk associated with tobacco consumption.
- Improving the early detection and effective management of chronic illness.
- Delivering better maternal and child health outcomes.
Stakeholders
Program research activities involve collaborations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled health care providers. The Lowitja Institute also plays a general brokerage role for mainstream health organisations wishing to partner with community controlled health care providers, either in research or in the delivery of services.
Research
Call for expressions of interest:
Impact and evaluation of resources that enhance end-user utilisation of interventions
Closing date: Friday 15 March 2013
Active projects
- Child and maternal health initiatives
- Aboriginal Patient Journey Mapping Tools Project: Communicating complexity
- Childhood Anaemia – Knowledge and resource development project
- Continuous quality improvement (CQI) initiatives
- Development and implementation of a sexual health audit tool and protocol
- The effect of early life conditions and experiences on child development and learning: A whole population study
- Health promotion and CQI: Tools and resources
- Implementation of innovations in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
- Insights into early origins of Aboriginal chronic non‐communicable disease
- Learning from Central Australian Aboriginal women’s experiences: Reflections on participation in the CAAC Family Partnership Program in Alice Springs
- National Appraisal of CQI Initiatives in Indigenous Primary Health Care
- One21seventy workforce development
- Phase 1 clinical trial of a vaccine for group A Streptococcus bacteria
- Quality of Care – National Research Partnership
- Scabies mite complement inhibitors as targets for novel therapeutics
- Standardisation of diagnostic protocols for early detection of rheumatic heart disease (PhD thesis)
- Towards a national approach to improve cancer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- Victorian Aboriginal Child Mortality Study (VACMS): Phase 2
Completed projects
- Audit and best practice for chronic disease (ABCD) Extension
- Australian Integrated Mental Health Initiative (AIMhi) – Resources
- Can swimming pools improve Indigenous children's hearing? (in-kind project)
- Chronic condition management strategies in Aboriginal communities
- Diabetes and related disorders in urban Indigenous people in the Darwin region (DRUID) (in-kind project)
- Let's Start: Parenting support interventions for Indigenous families
- Mibbinbah (Men's Spaces)
- Predicting heart attack and stroke for Aboriginal people in Central Australia: Protective factors and risk factors (in-kind project)
- Significance and impact of perceptions of identity, authenticity and deficit language on Aboriginal peoples
- A structured systems approach to improving health promotion practice for chronic disease in Indigenous communities
- Support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cancer CRE (Centre for Research Excellence)
Reference
1. T. Vos, B. Barker, L. Stanley & A. Lopez 2003, The Burden of Disease and Injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, University of Queensland, Brisbane.