UOW launches new health research centre

May 25, 2007

The University of Wollongong's Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences launched its new Centre for Health Initiatives (CHI) research institute on Thursday (24 May).

The centre brings together some of the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences' key research teams in six main streams of research, each co-ordinated by a stream leader.

The research streams and leaders are:

• Initiatives in Social Marketing -- Associate Professor Sandra Jones

• Initiatives in Media and Health -- Associate Professor Sandra Jones

• Initiatives in Aged and Dementia Care -- Associate Professor Victoria Traynor

• Initiatives in Health Workforce Change and Leadership --Faculty Dean Professor Patrick Crookes

• Initiatives in Individual Behaviour Change -- Faculty Executive Dean Professor Don Iverson

• Initiatives in Health Professional Education Research -- Associate Professor Nicky Hudson

CHI incorporates the former Centre for Health Behaviour and Communications Research (CHBCR), and has been established to provide enhanced opportunities for research and partnerships with industry and government agencies.

Professor Jones said CHBCR had been established in 2004 with three staff, and in three years had grown to incorporate 24 staff, 29 affiliated researchers and 38 post-graduate students. It was time to change the centre's name to better reflect its current research focus, she said.

CHI incorporates the Faculty's four schools -- the School of Health Sciences, School of Psychology, Graduate School of Medicine and the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health.

"We've got a diverse group of people with different expertise, so we can really do some interesting research," she said. "There is the opportunity for multi-disciplinary research through collaboration across different schools and different faculties."

Much of the centre's research involves working collaboratively with industry and other other external organisations such as the Cancer Council, Centrelink, the South East Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service, the National Breast Cancer Centre, Fitness NSW and Australian Health Management.

Current projects include researching the use of social marketing to improve the effectiveness of sun protection campaigns (an ARC Linkage grant with the NSW Cancer Council), researching community standards for ethics in the advertising of products such as alcoholic beverages and raising awareness of dementia among acute care staff, so that they are better able to identify the signs among patients under their care.