Collaborative partnerships for prevention
DATE
TYPE Prevention Centre News
‘Collaborative partnerships for prevention: health determinants, systems and impact’ is the theme for the special issue of Public Health Research & Practice, a peer-reviewed journal of the Sax Institute.
This issue showcases collaborative research from the CERI Centres of Research Excellence (CRE), representing approximately $27.5 million in funding awarded to more than 200 leading prevention and public health researchers since 2016. These CREs also support more than 100 early and mid-career researchers and include extensive associated research networks and collaborators internationally.
Many of the contributing authors for this special issue are also members of the Prevention Centre’s Emerging Leaders Network and and one of the papers looks at supporting the next generation of prevention research leaders to conduct effective research-policy partnerships.
In an editorial, the issue’s guest editors, Dr Shaan Naughton, Dr Briony Hill and Associate Professor Cheryce Harrison, outline key themes across preventive health, including collaborations to address the determinants of health, support research impact, and instigate systems change. They nominate tobacco harm, obesity, nutrition, physical activity and mental health as key focus areas for chronic disease prevention.
The papers included in this issue highlight that it is important to both identify and address the many risk factors of chronic disease and to focus on the collaborations, partnerships and systemic changes that are required to support implementation for broad public health impact.
Public Health Research & Practice April 2024 editorial ‘Collaboration for advancing chronic disease prevention research, practice, and policy’
Highlights of this issue include an analysis of Federal Government funding over the past decade, finding just 0.1% of the health budget targeted obesity prevention, and a review of Australian policy documents that shows there is no national policy exclusively focused on falls prevention for older people.
Other papers in this issue look at healthy food and drink retail policies in Australian hospitals, the effectiveness of tobacco control strategies within social housing, and workplace resources to support women in the preconception, pregnancy and postpartum periods. It also covers consumer and community involvement in preventive health as well as collaboration with end-users of research for prevention in the first 2000 days.
The Prevention Centre’s Science Communications Adviser Helen Signy helped coordinate CERI’s contributions for the journal, including a paper on building prevention research science communication and knowledge translation.
Our community of practice model showed that bringing researchers together with science communication experts can help to promote the communication of synthesised evidence and unified messaging on what works for prevention.
Helen Signy
Read the special prevention issue of Public Health Research & Practice here.
About CERI
The Collaboration for Enhanced Research Impact (CERI) is a joint initiative between the Prevention Centre and several NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence, established in June 2020 to enhance the profile and impact of chronic disease prevention in Australia. We are working together to find alignment in the policy and practice implications of our work and to develop shared communications across our various projects and participating centres.
