As Australia moves towards a referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, an Australian Centre for Disease Control takes shape, and the National Preventive Health Strategy rolls out, how can prevention researchers, policy makers and practitioners align their work more closely to make a positive impact?
This question will be addressed by researchers and policymakers attending the Emerging Leaders Symposium next month.
Meanwhile, below you will find a wealth of resources and the latest news from prevention research, shared when The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre recently took the reins of Croakey’s rotated Twitter account, @WePublicHealth. 
The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre tweets:
In the video below, Professor Andrew Wilson stresses that prevention is about much more than keeping people out of hospital (although this is how it is so often framed).
Professor Lucie Rychetnik notes the important distinction between science communications and corporate communications.
Another key point is that equity must be at the heart of prevention.
Networks for impact
The Collaboration for Enhanced Research Impact (CERI) is a joint initiative between @TAPPCentre and 11 NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence for research synthesis, knowledge mobilisation and capacity building focused on prevention.
CERI’s @CreHipp creates evidence-based knowledge and support for women before and during pregnancy. They’re offering grants for Early and Mid Career Researchers, PhD students, Â and healthcare workers. They support @HiPPP_EMR_C plus the #HiPPP2023 conference! See https://hipp.org.au
@CreHipp has a new Body Positive Birth Alliance bringing together consumers, clinicians, researchers, advocates & professional groups to challenge weight-centric maternity care and address weight stigma and discrimination. See https://hipp.org.au/networks/body-positive-birth-alliance/
CERI’s RE-FRESH @h_food_retail is advancing healthy food retail research and practice. Enrolments close this week for their short course led by world experts on transforming food environments to be health enabling. See https://healthyfoodretail.com
RE-FRESH has been bringing together health services policy makers to help improve food in health facilities. @AnnaPeetersAus and @MirandaRBlake discussed the importance of healthier food retail in a @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast.
Professor Louise Baur spoke with @TAPPCentre about the value of prevention when it comes to childhood obesity and early intervention. Every $1 invested in obesity prevention  has a return of up to $6.
CERI’s @CRE_EPOCH Translate investigated how to best promote healthy lifestyle and prevent obesity in children aged 0-5 years. It is led by Professor Louise Baur, President of @WorldObesity See https://earlychildhoodobesity.com
@NCOISAustralia is proud to be affiliated with the new @SPARKE_collab investigating the latest research on youth vaping prevention. See https://www.sparkecollaboration.org/
CERI’s National Centre of Implementation Science @NCOISAustralia looks at prevention for diet, physical activity, weight, tobacco and alcohol in community settings including early childhood care, school, sport clubs and workplaces. See https://ncois.org.au
CERI’s @CREtobacco is developing the evidence base for tobacco endgame strategies. It initially focused on the cigarette epidemic in Australia but is now also researching vaping among young people. See https://tobacco-endgame.centre.uq.edu.au
Tobacco Endgame CRE Director @CoralGartner chatted with @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast about the beginning of the end for tobacco in Australia. https://preventioncentre.org.au/resources/is-it-time-to-call-the-endgame-for-tobacco-in-australia/
CERI’s CRE Prevention of Falls Injuries @CRE_PFI develops and evaluates strategies in #falls #prevention, the leading cause of injury hospitalisation and death in Australia despite a quarter of falls being preventable. See https://crepreventfallsinjuries.org.au
How to turn around these stats? Is it about physical activity, strength, or balance exercises, or are there other strategies that can have a beneficial impact? @CathieSherr explored this with the @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast.
CERI’s @CreWhirl aims to improve health outcomes and quality of life in women’s reproductive health, including Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS, infertility and early menopause. See https://whirlcre.edu.au
CRE WHiRL Director @HelenaTeede @MonashUni has new MRFF funding to scale up a women’s digital health innovation platform to translate the latest international evidence-based guidelines on PCOS, early menopause and infertility.
CERI’s @WandCre focuses on women and non-communicable disease and detection to improve women’s health across their life course. See https://wandcre.org.au
Dr Mridula Bandyopadhyay from CRE WaND spoke with @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast about improving health messaging for culturally and linguistically diverse people including a project on menopause communication with @JeanHailes
CERI’s CRE Healthy Food, Healthy Planet, Healthy People @georgeinstitute is modelling the impact of policy options on human and planetary health and working to improve food systems, nutrition and sustainability.
Housing for health
CERI’s @Housing_CRE is the first and only health-focused centre to span healthy housing for Indigenous Australians, people in need and the growing population of rental housing tenants.
Healthy Housing CRE Director @rebecca_bentley spoke with @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast about how housing affects our health and how this social determinant can exacerbate chronic disease.
CERI’s @SPHERE_CRE focuses on sexual and reproductive health for women in primary care, working with researchers, policy makers, women’s health organisations, healthcare professionals and consumers. See https://spherecre.org
@SPHERE_CRE welcomed recent news of the medical abortion regulation changing from 1 August and is encouraging GPs, nurses, nurse practitioners and community pharmacists to join @AusCAPPS_ Network online Community of Practice. See https://medcast.com.au/communities/auscapps
Chronic disease is the major cause of premature death and poor quality of life in Australia but a third can be prevented by improving risk factors including poor nutrition, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol.
Chronic disease is rising with almost half Australians having one or more chronic conditions. NCDs cause 9 out of every 10 preventable deaths in our country.
TAPP Centre prevention research looks at the burden of chronic illness, and the benefits of prevention for health and wellbeing.
Prevention strategies creating even small changes to chronic disease risk factors can reduce the health burden for individuals, communities and the healthcare system.
Preventive health interventions generate economic benefits from a more sustainable healthcare system to increased productivity. Find out more on the benefits of chronic disease prevetion as TAPP Centre maps the value of prevention.
Addressing root causes of chronic diseases improves people’s health and also benefits other sectors including education, employment ad the environment. A co-benefits approach can help governments prioritise action.
A Wellbeing Economy can promote health equity and support the ripple effect of the value of prevention from cost benefits to co-benefits, Â to @KTrebeck who sat down with @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast.
The evidence base on the value of prevention in an Australian context has been reviewed by @TAPPCentre with a focus on key risk factors of overweight, obesity, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, tobacco and smoking.
Following our rapid review on the value of prevention; @cancerNSW & @NSWHealth commissioned @TAPPCentre to also look at the value of primary prevention to reduce alcohol consumption and the health, social and economic benefits. Read
Our @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast discussed the results of this review with @nikki_woolley and Dr Elly Howse.
Don’t just take our word on the co-benefits of the value of prevention. Professor Sir @MichaelMarmot of @ucl @marmotihe Institute of Health Equity in a @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast on the social determinants of health.
We’ve shared several TAPP Centre podcast episodes this week & our web resource hub also has a wide range of findings/policy briefs, evidence reviews, factsheets, videos & stories on #prevention #research with a great search function:
Shout out to the amazing host of TAPP Centre Prevention Works podcast @GretchenMedia who has been sharing the importance of the value of prevention with incredible interviews of our researchers and special guests since 2018.
Stay in touch
One of the best ways to keep up to date on the value of prevention and all the latest chronic disease prevention research is to subscribe to the TAPP Centre monthly Chronicle newsletter.
Growing media focus on commercial determinants and social determinants of health help highlight the value of prevention. @CroakeyNews leads the way!
TAPP Centre curates chronic disease prevention media coverage almost daily here:
The CREs we’ve introduced you to this week, in the Collaboration for Enhanced Research Impact (CERI), have helped TAPP CENTRE on knowledge mobilisation and science communication with practical tips on scicomm.
Check out the CERI User Guide for communication tips from writing policy briefs and opinion pieces to storytelling, social media and engaging the media. Soon you’ll be pitching an oped on the value of prevention to @CroakeyNews.
CERI and TAPP Centre combined our research, policy and communications expertise for policy-relevant lessons on the (conception-5yrs) supporting healthy behaviours to reduce chronic disease.
As part of this knowledge synthesis we chatted with @HSkouteris and @chung_alexandra about the importance of the first 2000 days for the TAPP Centre Prevention Works podcast. Listen here.
Another TAPP Centre examined complexities of public health law, regulation and policy for the value of prevention, including food, alcohol, tobacco, physical activity, immunisation and road safety at all government levels.
As part of this knowledge synthesis, @TAPPCentre Prevention Works podcast chatted with Maddie Heenan and Jenny Kaldor about the role of law in prevention of chronic disease. Listen here.
The Government commits to an Australian CDC saying its work in preventive health will build over time. Read the TAPP Centre vision of a CDC with national leadership and how it could boost investment and action on chronic disease prevention.
#PetsOfPrevention
Connections
The TAPP Centre events page keeps researchers and connected with online and in-person activities. We promote events on chronic disease prevention and public health, so contact us via our website to have your event listed. See
The TAPP Centre supports the next generation of chronic disease researchers, policy makers and practitioners with our Emerging Leaders Network. Early and mid-career professionals can join the network here.
The TAPP Centre communities of practice also offer mentoring and networking opportunities around public health law, qualitative research, citizen science and communications.
Croakey extends warm thanks to Cindy Jones for organising the tweets above on behalf of The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre.
See previous articles from @WePublicHealth guest tweeters
