2014 archive

This page archives a selection of tweets from those who guest-tweeted for the account during 2013-2014.

Documenting @WePublicHealth participants

2014

22 Dec-5 Jan

Melissa Sweet aka @croakeyblog tweeted quoteable quotes and memorable articles from the past year at Croakey, as well as doing some blatant flogging of Croakey merchandise. As in: buy your Croakey T-shirts, hoodies, phone cases, stickers, cards etc HERE. And big thanks to Summer May Finlay who guested on Dec 24.

15 Dec

Sean Parnell – @seanparnell – has been a journalist for 20 years, esp. politics & health, currently Health Editor, FOI Editor at The Australian. Author, lecturer.

y rely on to become more open, transparent and patient-centred.  It is based on the highly successful UK model which is used across the NHS.

In Australia, Michael is a Director on a number of Boards, including CheckUP Australia (formerly General Practice Queensland) and Health Leaders Australia.  He holds honorary professor and senior research fellow posts at the School of Medicine, Griffith University and the School of Medicine, University of Exeter (UK). In the UK, Professor Greco was Patient Experience Director for the National Primary Care Development Team, and he had a similar role with the NHS National Clinical Governance Support Team.  His academic background is focused on healthcare, evaluation and clinical pastoral education, and includes a PhD in medical education and a Bachelor of Theology. He tweets as @CEO_POAustralia.

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18 Aug

Priyanka Rai – @priyankarai113 – and Carter Moore – @Fiatnox – are part of the policy team at the Consumers Health Forum of Australia. CHF is the national peak body representing Australia’s healthcare consumers. They covered the  CHF National Workshop, ‘Health in a time of change’, from Melbourne on 18-19 August. The #CHF14 workshop heard from a number of health experts, consumer advocates and health communicators including Stephen Duckett, Melissa Sweet, Stephen Leeder, Justin Coleman and Andrew Elshaug.  Priyanka and Carter also tweeted about CHF’s principles of consumer-centred healthcare: Co-ordinated and Comprehensive Care, Appropriate Care, Trust and Respect, Informed Decision Making, Whole of Person Care and Accessible and Affordable Care. As well, they tweeted from a National Press Club event on the social determinants of health.

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11 Aug

Professor Kerry Arabena and Jonathan “Yotti” Kingsley tweeted from a conference in Canada, EcoHealth 2014. Ecohealth is a field that strives for “sustainable health of people, wildlife and ecosystems by promoting discovery, understanding and transdisciplinarity”.  The conference theme: Connections for health, ecosystems and society.

Kerry Arabena is Chair for Indigenous Health and Professor and Director, Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, and formerly the Professor and Director of Indigenous Health Research in the School for Indigenous Health, Monash University. A descendant of the Meriam people of the Torres Strait, and a former social worker with a doctorate in human ecology, Professor Arabena has an extensive background in public health, administration, community development and research working in senior roles in indigenous policy and sexual health.  Jonathan ‘Yotti’ Kingsley has worked in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, government bodies, academic institutes and NGO’s across Australia in public health and community development. Jonathan sees our environment as central to health and as having the capacity to bridge health inequalities (the basis of his Masters, PhD and previous Visiting Scholar position at Cambridge University). Jonathan views himself as not only an academic but also a activist.

Click here for the call to action.

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4 Aug

Kerrie Noonan @Keznoo

Kerrie Noonan has been working a clinical psychologist in the area of grief, loss and palliative care since 1995 and is she is the cofounder of The GroundSwell Project and Dying To Know Day (August 8th) an organisation that exits to create social change and build death literacy in the community. Kerrie is currently completing her PhD in death studies at the University of Western Sydney. She conducted two tweet-chats during her week at @WePublicHealth – about #dyingtoknowday and about the use of social media to tackle taboos.

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28 July

Paul Glasziou  @PaulGlasziou

Paul is Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Bond University  and a part-time General Practitioner.  He was the Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford from 2003-2010. His key interests include identifying and removing the barriers to using high quality research in everyday clinical practice. He is the author of seven books related to evidence based practice: Systematic Reviews in Health Care, Decision Making in Health Care and Medicine: integrating evidence and values, An Evidence-Based Medicine Workbook, Clinical Thinking: Evidence, Communication and Decision-making, Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM, and Evidence-Based Medical Monitoring: Principles and Practice.  He is the recipient of an NHRMC Australia Fellowship which he commenced at Bond University in July, 2010.

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21 July

Daniel Reeders @onekind

This year marks the beginning of my second decade in public health work. I have an unusual background for public health: I studied Law and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. I hated ‘thinking like a lawyer’ and took a year of absence to work for the Victorian AIDS Council, where I got a thorough apprenticeship in health promotion and adult education principles from my colleagues.

Since then I’ve specialised in social marketing and community-based research, working as Campaign Coordinator for Living Positive Victoria, Senior Project Worker at the Multicultural Health and Support Service at the Centre for Culture Ethnicity and Health, and more recently as Screening Program Advisor at Cancer Council Victoria.

Currently I work as a Research Officer with the What Works & Why project at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. My practice has multiple strands to it — health promotion, public health, community health, social marketing, community-based research and policy analysis — that smoothly interweave or tangle up in knots depending on the issue and how much coffee I’ve had.

Daniel tweeted from AIDS 2014, the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, and also conducted an inspired Twitter discussion – #stigmachat (some random extracts below).

Click here for the clip below.
See:

personal blog
work blog
conference blog
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14 July

@LukevanderBeeke: A multi-disciplinarian with extensive Australian and international experience, Luke is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Marketing for Change, a social enterprise that works collaboratively to influence behaviours, improve lives and deliver positive social change.  He’s also a former Director of the National Social Marketing Centre (UK) and an Associate at Ogilvy PR Australia.  Luke has worked on public health related social marketing and behaviour change programs for numerous organisations including the World Health Organisation, Department for International Development (UK) and the Department of Health England.  Luke was a member of the International Collaboration on Social Determinants of Health, a joint initiative of the UK government and the WHO to inform the Marmot Review of Health Inequalities in England.  He sits on the Board of the Australian Social Marketing Association and is an active member of the Social Determinants of Health Alliance in Australia. Luke has considerable experience applying behaviour change methods to public health challenges and holds a post-graduate diploma in health science.  This week he is attending the 2014 International Social Marketing Conference (Melbourne), and will also deliver a short presentation and will be a member of a plenary debate entitled “Key Issues in Social Marketing.”

 

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7 July

It’s NAIDOC Week, and in the chair is Jody Currie from the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health, which unites, integrates and leads community controlled health services in South East Queensland. The Institute was established in 2009 by four independent Community Controlled Health Services to provide for the needs of Australia’s second largest Indigenous population. Since then, the Institute’s regional network has expanded to 14 multidisciplinary primary health clinics. Follow @jody_currie and @IUIH_

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30 June

Dr Emma Croager is Education & Research Services Manager at Cancer Council Western Australia. She leads a state-wide network of Health Promotion Officers responsible for cancer education and health promotion initiatives in regional Western Australia, and a metro-based team of project officers and administration staff responsible for the publication and dissemination of cancer information. She co-ordinates Cancer Council WA’s Aboriginal cancer education program, manages Cancer Council WA’s Research Funding Program and is a member of a number of local and national committees including the PHAA (WA Branch), and Cancer Council Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Working Group.  She worked for a number of years in cancer research before moving to the UK and working at Nature Reviews Cancer and Cancer Research UK.  Since returning to Perth in 2006, she has worked in chronic disease prevention and public health.  She is also a runner and a scuba diver and tweets from @emmacroager

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23 June

For over 25 years Colin Cowell has used his national and international marketing/communication experience to make a significant contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. In 1993 at Congress Alice Springs, he facilitated, wrote and produced the first Aboriginal Radio comedy series in Australia on the subject of AIDS/sexually transmitted diseases. In 2004 he developed www.cuzcongress.com <http://www.cuzcongress.com/>  an Aboriginal children’s help line for social problems in Central Australia (drugs, alcohol, petrol sniffing, violence) sexually transmitted diseases.

He moved to Canberra in 2005 and has since consulted and worked for the Federal Department of Health (Including the Roll out Opal /reduction of petrol sniffing campaign), FAHCSIA Indigenous communications (including The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children) and managing the Attorney-General’s Indigenous Family Violence network. Since 2008, he has also project managed and facilitated three major gatherings of over 700 Aboriginal males in the Northern Territory (Alice Springs and Katherine) who are engaged and committed to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal males, their families and their communities.

In 2012, he moved to NACCHO, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation as National Media and Communications Advisor, where he was responsible for creating and implementing a “state of the art” communication strategy that included a new website www.naccho.org.au <http://www.naccho.org.au>, a daily Aboriginal Health  News Alert www.nacchocommunique.com <http://www.nacchocommunique.com>, Australia’s first Aboriginal Health Newspaper (see latest edition in the Koori Mail)  and a Twitter account @NACCHOAustralia with 8,500 followers that now leads the way in the promotion of Aboriginal health, media and political issues. He tweets as @ColinCowell.

Colin tweeted news from the NACCHO Summit and his week culminated with an interview for an ABC Radio National segment on Twitterati.

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16 June

Dr Frank Beard is a Staff Specialist Public Health Physician at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, based at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, NSW.  He works in immunisation and vaccine preventable disease policy, surveillance and research, but also has an interest in public health more broadly. Before training in public health medicine he worked as a GP for 15 years. Frank will be tweeting from the Public Health Association Australia 14th National Immunisation Conference in Melbourne – follow #PHAA2014. He usually tweets as @DrFrankBeard

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9 June

Dr Kimberley Ivory is Senior Lecturer, Population Medicine at the Sydney School of Public Health (@SydneySPH). Previously she has been Senior Medical Officer at Family Planning Victoria, a rural GP, a freelance journalist and a community arts activist. All these roles have fuelled her passion for helping health practitioners understand the importance of the social determinants of health and really hearing the person’s story in improving health outcomes, especially for minority and marginalised populations. She is undertaking a PhD with the Centre for Values, Ethics and Law in Medicine (@VELiM_USyd) at the University of Sydney looking for creative ways to understand and improve how GPs manage personally challenging consultations. Below are some of her tweet-reports from a public health intensive in NZ. Her Twitter handle is @kaydeeye

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2 June

Samantha Thomas is Associate Professor of Public Health at the School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong. Her research focus is on the impact of dangerous consumption industries on the health of communities. In particular she has specialised in examining the range of tactics that are used by the food industry and the gambling industry to promote their products and how these tactics are used to challenge and prevent comprehensive regulatory reform. She has provided invited testimony to Australian Parliamentary Inquiries into gambling reform. Samantha believes that evidence based advocacy is vital in reforming the harmful practices of industries.  Her Twitter handle is @doc_samantha

During the week she tweeted her top ten public health resources:

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26 May

Marita Hefler is a researcher at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Northern Territory. Her current research focus is tobacco control, particularly reducing smoking rates among Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people. She is interested in how social media can be used in innovative ways to inspire community movements to promote and improve health, as promote citizen engagement in politics and policy making, particularly for people who experience social marginalisation and exclusion. With heated debate continuing about the federal budget, Marita will be exploring the implications for Aboriginal health, along with tweets about World No Tobacco Day, which is happening on 31 May, and a smattering of other public health topics that catch her eye. Marita’s twitter handle is @m_hef.

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19 May, 2014

Dameyon Bonson is a First Nation Australian of both Indigenous and Caucasian descent. Born and bred in Darwin, he now lives where he always wanted to holiday, Broome, WA. He describes himself as a Social Warrior rather than a Social Worker. Dameyon has presented internationally and nationally on Indigenous men’s engagement. He also convenes Black Rainbow Australia as a vehicle to work towards improving the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly within the LGBQTI, Sistergirl and Brotherboy community. He has recently become a contributing author to The Good Men Project – “A Gay, Aboriginal, Introverted Male (And Not At All What You’d Expect That Means”. Dameyon, who was one of the moderators for the recent #IHMayDay Twitter-fest on Indigenous health, http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/?cat=46690and tweets as @db_1974 and blogs here.

Below are some tweets from Dameyon on the role of Black Rainbow Australia @BlkRnBow.

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12 May, 2014

In the week of the Federal Budget, it was timely to have an experienced health policy analyst, Dr Stephen Duckett from the Grattan Institute, in the chair.  He has held top operational and policy leadership positions in health care in Australia and Canada, including as Secretary of what is now the Commonwealth Department of Health. He has a reputation for creativity, evidence-based innovation and reform in areas ranging from the introduction of activity-based funding for hospitals to new systems of accountability for the safety of hospital care. An economist, he is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He tweets as @stephenjduckett.

5 May, 2014

In the week after the National Commission of Audit and the week before the Federal Budget, it is timely to have Andrew McAuliffe, Director of Policy at the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association in the chair. He has 25 years experience as a clinician, service manager, bureaucrat and advocate. The AHHA is the “voice of public health care” and tweets as @AusHealthcare.

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28 April, 2014

Jason Trethowan is CEO of Barwon Medicare Local in Geelong, Victoria, and Deputy Chair of the G21 Region Alliance Board. His tweeting is timely given uncertainty about how Medicare Locals will fare in the forthcoming Federal Budget. This link compiles all Croakey coverage about Medicare Locals. Jason tweets as @BarwonML. At the end of his week in the chair, he wrote:

“In a week dominated by federal budget speculation and the analysis of the 86 recommendations from the Commission of Audit, the WePublicHealth handle still had plenty of other areas to promote.

I was pleased to be able to provide some insight into local Geelong based organisations such as @leasurenetworks @healthygeelong and @activeinparks.

These and many others share the view that promoting physical activity, access to healthy food and community connections are key ingredients for a healthier future. I attempted a#WPHchat on health and wellbeing. Some good engagement but I think can be better next time. We need more conversation on what matters in public health.

The Geelong region has also been challenged in recent times by the announcement of a series of job losses with the exiting of Ford, Alcoa and Qantas maintenance to name a few. With this comes the opportunity for our region to be proactive in political engagement so we can bring new employment to the region. Jobs are a major determinant for our communities’ future health and wellbeing.

In the last week the Prime Minister was here to launch the Location for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). I was able to meet with senator Mitch Fifield who is the minister responsible for the NDIS. The need for closer disability provider and NDIA relationships was highlighted. The Premier was also in the region to announce a number of school infrastructure projects. This was a huge welcome for the schools funded.

Whether it was timely or not, coinciding with the big job of taking responsibility for @WePublicHealth was the opportunity for me to promote the role of Medicare Locals. There is much budget speculation about the future of the 61 organisation network so I unashamedly promoted our work.

Of course many of the @WePublicHealth followers got behind the #IHMayDay – Indigenous Health MayDay. Well done to all as this was trending big time in the Twittersphere and promoted some outstanding messages. This should be a regular one!”

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21 April, 2014

Professor Tarun Weeramanthri is Executive Director, Public Health and Clinical Services Division, WA Health. He has served as Chief Health Officer in two jurisdictions (Northern Territory 2004-2007, and Western Australia 2008-present). He has a PhD in social medicine, and is a Fellow of Leadership WA. He has a strong commitment to the public sector, innovation and partnerships to improve the health of the whole population, both in terms of life expectancy and quality of life. His mantra is ‘put the public back in public health’, and he sees new technology and social media as vital tools in that effort. He tweets as @tarunw. He kindly summarised his week of tweeting as per below:

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14 April, 2014

Expect to hear plenty about health inequalities this week with oral health academic Professor Marc Tennant in the chair. His Twitter bio says: “Make marginalisation history!”. He is the Director (and founder) of the International Research Collaborative – Oral Health and Equity (IRC) and the Centre for Rural and Remote Oral Health at The University of Western Australia in Perth, Western Australia, and is driven by a passion for equity and justice. Follow him at @MarcTennant and find out more at his website.

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7 April, 2014

Rural GP Dr Ewen McPhee did nearly 400 tweets when reporting from the International Forum on Quality & Safety in Healthcare Paris 2014, some of which are Storified here. You can also check @QualityForum and #Quality2014 for updates.

He explains why he has volunteered a second time to guest tweet for @WePublicHealth:

“I volunteered for @WePublicHealth as a way of contributing to public debate around health topics. I note that General practice and Primary care is often not represented at National Debates and in public forum in a way that should reflect its importance to the health of Australians. Equally there is so much that is happening in General practice and in particular Rural Medicine around addressing inequities and access block to health.

The upcoming international conference on Quality and Safety in Health is, I hope, an opportunity for us to focus on the importance of delivering quality outcomes for our patients, their families and communities.

Having been immersed in the politics of Medicare Locals, Federal and State funding silos and the disparities between primary and secondary care I hope to learn how other countries have broken down the barriers and improved the focus on patients. As GPs we are often well connected to our local communities, our local government and non-government providers in ensuring health needs are identified and managed with the resources available to us.

I had the pleasure of hosting the Queensland Mental Health Commissioner Dr Lesley van Schoubroek last week in a listening tour of my rural community. It was a tremendous opportunity to hear from the many providers of Mental Health services about the challenges and opportunities that exist for improving access to mental health services.

What I heard was that General Practice remains critical to patient access to care, that GPs are often the first point of contact for the distressed and distraught. As such many of the challenges that I heard are about communication and how service providers can work better with GPs and through us other providers. I spoke with local Government recently about the importance that local leadership has in delivering on the social determinants of health that lay the foundation for a healthy community. These opportunities for the core of what GPs are about, that is being the advocate for not only our patients, but also leaders for our communities; something that sets us apart from specialist and hospital service providers.”

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31 March, 2014

Dr Ann Larson is a demographer, which means she crunches numbers for a living.  She is also a consultant who likes bests the jobs that takes her to communities and health care facilities to learn what actually is actually happening. By necessity that makes her a qualitative researcher as well.

Her career has taken her full circle. As a young demographer she learned to estimate population change in developing countries and eventually found work in Bangladesh.  As a not so young demographer she got involved in evaluating and teaching about evaluation of health programs in Aboriginal Australia at the University of Queensland under the mentorship of Profs Cindy Shannon and Ian Riley.

She then disappeared near the Indian Ocean to start a university department of rural health in Geraldton, Western Australian, which she directed for 11 years.  There she researched and supported others to research health service innovations for rural and remote populations, health effects of racism and health determinants of migration flows out of rural areas to name a few broad categories.  She stepped aside four years ago and is now an independent consultant, evaluating regional development and global health programs.

Ann will be tweeting from the Indian state of Jharkhand. For @wepublichealth she will share her thoughts about what Australian public health reformers and practitioners can learn from this extraordinary country.  She apologises in advance for poor internet connectivity and time zone differences which will make real time conversations involving her difficult.

Ann usually tweets as @ann_gero and irregularly blogs about population, health and evaluation issues on her website www.socialdimensions.com.au

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24 March, 2014

Summer May Finlay is a Yorta Yorta woman. She has a Bachelor of Social Science and a Masters of Public Health, and has worked at the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW and the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation. She has previously tweeted for @IndigenousX and you can read more about her at The Guardian. She also blogs. Summer’s tweeting on the health impacts of racism were very timely, given public debate about proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act.

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17 March, 2014

Steve Pratt is the Nutrition and Physical Activity Manager at Cancer Council Western Australia. He is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Accredited Exercise Physiologist. Steve has been with Cancer Council for more than ten years and is involved in social marketing, public health programs and research on nutrition, physical activity, alcohol and body weight. Steve’s team at Cancer Council coordinate or are involved in a number of state-wide public health programs, including Crunch&Sip, FOODcents and LiveLighter. He also takes an interest in cancer screening, men’s health and Aboriginal health. Steve is looking to embark on a PhD this year examining the link between alcohol intake and body weight.

This week, Steve will be tweeting from the International Congress on Obesity in Kuala Lumpur, where he has two posters – one on FOODcents and one on LiveLighter – and is presenting the latest evaluation data from LiveLighter on behalf of implementation and research teams.

Steve normally tweets from @pratt_steve where he mixes the personal (running, ironman triathlon, 80s music, juvenile humour and a little politics) with the professional.

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10 March, 2014

Dr Lareen Newman is a Senior Research Fellow at the Southgate Institute for Health Society & Equity @Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, who researches in public health, specifically taking a critical perspective on the social determinants of health and equity. Her main interests are in how the digital divide impacts people’s ability to access resources which shape their wellbeing and livelihood (in other words, how people’s ICT use – or lack thereof – interacts with the social determinants of health and with equity of access). She started this work under the well-known Health In All Policies program of the South Australian government through the Digital Wellbeing Project (published by the WHO). She has since published a range of academic papers and reports for government on digital access among disadvantaged groups in general (see eg http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/639 and specifically relating to health services – see here http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/AH11042.htm and here http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/11/09/heapro.das062.short and for specific groups such as kids with disabilities http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cch.12048/full). She is increasingly moving into digital inclusion research to identify the processes which lead to digital inclusion/exclusion, most recently among the homeless and among higher education students, and therefore what policymakers and service providers can do to support those with lower resources for ICT use. Most recently she guest edited a journal special issue taking a critical perspective on e-health. She tweets as @LareenNewman and you can check out her GoogleScholar or Researchgate profiles, or read more about her at www.flinders.edu.au/people/lareen.newman <http://www.flinders.edu.au/people/lareen.newman>.

3 March, 2014

Dr Lynore Geia is a Bwgcolman woman, a Registered Nurse and Midwife, a researcher, and a mother. She was born on Palm Island, north Queensland, and her PhD explores the strengths of child rearing practices of Palm Island families – you can read it here:  http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/25465/. She has kindly agreed to take on @WePublicHealth the same week that she starts a new job as a senior lecturer at James Cook University in Townsville.

The contributions she brings to research emanates from her cultural life experience of being a fourth generation Palm Islander. Most of Lynore’s childhood was during the Queensland Government assimilationist period living under the Aboriginal Protection Act. Lynore heard many stories of Murris including her own mother, who as children were transported to Palm Island and her father and others like him who was born and raised under the punitive policies of the time on Palm Island. From a cultural perspective, Lynore brings authority, credibility and cultural sensibility to bear in the emerging field of Indigenist Research. She tweets as @LynoreGeia.

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24 February, 2014

In the lead up to Change Day on 6 March, Mary Freer @FreerMary) returned to the WPH chair to share some of the pledges that people across the country have made towards improving the health and wellbeing of others.

According to the campaign’s website, the event arose out of the NHS Change Day 2013 in the UK, which started with a conversation on Twitter between a group of young improvement leaders in the summer of 2012.

They began exchanging ideas about how they could improve their health service. Before long this developed into a shared vision about bringing together staff across the NHS and its supporters to produce positive change and improvement. This led to the very first “NHS Change Day” on 13th March 2013.

Its shared purpose was to organise a grassroots movement of people to take a specific action to improve the outcomes and experience of care for patients on a sustainable basis. The initial goal was to mobilise 65,000 people – 1,000 for each year since the NHS was established. In fact, it generated 189,000 online pledges of action and subsequent actions for change.

While the UK event has been a success, it will be interesting to see whether Australians respond similarly, and also to have some analysis about who is pledging and what pledges they are making.

Croakey’s own pledge (Melissa Sweet) was a personal commitment to speak up when I see, hear or witness racism, in response to this powerful article by @TheKooriWoman about her experience of racism within a Sydney pharmacy.

If you’d like to make a pledge, click here..

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17 February, 2014

Fiona Lander is a medical doctor and lawyer currently based in Melbourne, working at Austin Health and Corrs Chambers Westgarth. Fiona is currently on secondment with the Advocacy-Health Alliance Network at Justice Connect, assisting with the establishment of partnerships between healthcare and legal services. She previously worked for 2 years with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Health in Mumbai, India, and with the health law and human rights team at WHO, Geneva. Fiona also conducts research and provides public health and human rights consulting services to NGOs and international organisations, and lectures at the Copenhagen School of Global Health. She tweets as @fionalander. Her tweets for @WePublicHealth, which provided an informative overview of how legal issues effect health, are summarised here.

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10 February, 2014

Carol Bennett took on WPH when she had only just started her new job as CEO of the Hunter Medicare Local in NSW, after leading the Consumers Health Forum for five years. We heard her thoughts on primary healthcare reform and where it should be heading, as well as about some of the initiatives that the Hunter Medicare Local is pursuing. More here. She tweets as @CarolJBennett.

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3 February, 2014

Siv Parker is an award-winning writer and blogger. She writes: I was the NT Ministerial Officer for the Australian Government Department of Health and Aging the day the PM convened a press conference to announce the NT Emergency Response to Child Abuse in Indigenous Communities, aka ‘the Intervention’. I worked on the Child Health Check Initiative, alongside the medic teams, the defence personnel and the NT police and went into more communities and outstations than I can count, all over the Northern Territory. I then jumped the fence and worked in the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector – and among other things oversaw the installation of hearing booth and dental clinics; accreditation for Aboriginal health services; and, coordinated community workshops (child safety; community engagement; mandatory reporting). My primary focus this week is topical in the lead up to the tabling in Parliament of the annual Closing the Gap Report Card: Closing the gap & health advocacy. I will frame my @WePublicHealth presence around a full week’s work – ie Monday to Friday ~9-5, with anecdotes from three different perspectives: Day in the life of a health bureaucrat; an Indigenous health advocate; and an Indigenous patient. I write fulltime. My genre is social realism. I am self employed & not affiliated with any person, organisation, network or body with the only exception being I stand as a member of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. I blog here : OnDusk. My first book will be published this year. It is a fictionalised account of the experiences that lead me to becoming a writer and part of the emerging Indigenous social media presence. My second book will take a little longer – my second goal is the hard copy publication of my manuscript, awarded the David Unaipon Award 2012, under the umbrella of the inaugural Queensland Literary Awards.

27 January, 2014

Paul McNamara is currently working as a clinical nurse consultant in Australia’s tropical north. His roles have included school-based youth health, perinatal mental health, consultation liaison psychiatry, undergraduate education and clinical supervision. Paul has built a professional social media portfolio “branded” meta4RN, established with the goal of articulating and sharing some aspects of contemporary nursing practice. More info here and/or by following @meta4RN on Twitter. See this Storify for a record of his tweeting around perinatal mental health and more.

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20 January, 2014

Dr Lesley Russell (@LRussellWolpe), a Senior Advisor at the Sax Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at the Australian National University, shared masses of interesting and useful links with a particular focus on health care reform in Australia and the US, mental health, Indigenous health, addressing health disparities and health budget issues.

Dr Russell returned to Australia in October 2012 after three years in Washington DC where she worked on a range of issues around the enactment and implementation of health care reform, initially as a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress and later as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General in the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr Russell has substantial experience working in health policy in the United States and Australia, both in and out of government.

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13 January, 2014

Ross Green and Eliza Metcalfe have backgrounds in allied health and media respectively. Currently they work in Knowledge Translation at the Centre for Community Child Health in Melbourne. Inspired by the opportunities and knowledge that have come through their work, they discovered a passion for health communication. Outside of their day jobs, Ross and Eliza use Twitter and their blog, healthycommunicators.wordpress.com, to highlight examples of great health communication and to generate discussion about what health communication is and how it can be done better. They tweet as @_HealthyComms. They provided a wealth of useful resources and links, as summarised here at Croakey.

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5 January, 2014

Dr Brendon Neuen is a junior doctor at Cairns Hospital. His main interest is in chronic diseases, particularly kidney disease, and public health strategies to address their shared risk factors. Much of his day-to-day clinical work involves rural, Indigenous and tropical medicine. His research focuses on improving access to the circulation for dialysis treatment of kidney failure, which received national recognition from the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology in 2013. He tweets as @brendonln, and you can read more about him here.

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2013

16 December, 2013

Dr Ginny Barbour is Medicine Editorial Director, PLOS. She was until recently also PLOS Medicine’s Chief Editor and has been closely involved in running the journal for the almost 10 years it has existed. As Medicine Editorial Director for PLOS, she oversees three medical journals — PLOS Medicine, PLOS Pathogens and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. She was one of the three editors that started PLOS Medicine and was its first Chief Editor. She originally trained as a physician, specializing in Haematology, and then as a scientist, before becoming an editor. She is also Consulting Editor to PLOS Currents Disasters and Chair of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). She is now based in Brisbane, and tweets as @GinnyBarbour.

Ginny highlighted many useful resources including:

• A statement from the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association: Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

• Seventy-Five Trials and Eleven Systematic Reviews a Day: How Will We Ever Keep Up?

• A really nice piece on @creativecommons licenses & their power fr0m @ConversationEDU: An explainer.

• This @PLOSMedicine editorial, Poor Health in Rich Countries: A Role for Open Access Journals, has a gripping intro on inequality in rich counties.

Ginny has recently moved to Australia from the UK and commented: “One area I’m struck by here is the huge differential in gambling in diff communities in Australia – and how that drives inequality”.

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9 December, 2013

Dr Cameron Webb, a Medical Entomologist with the University of Sydney, Pathology West – ICPMR Westmead, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity (MBI) and Centre for Infectious Diseases & Microbiology Public Health, shared masses of informative and useful information about mosquitoes and related health concerns, and wetlands rehabilitation. He tweets as @Mozziebites and you can read more about him here.

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2 December, 2013

Dr Kate Conigrave, an addiction medicine specialist and public health physician from the University of Sydney, tweeted about alcohol-related harm, treatment and policy – timely given the Federal Government’s recent decision to de-fund the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia. She tweets as @KConigrave. (Read this compilation post at Croakey – which shares many useful links and resources).

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25 November, 2013

Kristine Olaris is the CEO of Women’s Health East and discussed the prevention of violence against women, using the hashtags #PVAW #16Days. Kristine tweets as @kristineolaris.

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18 November, 2013

Adelaide-based consultant Mary Freer provided tweet-reporting from a Health Workforce Australia conference, and told us about the @ChangeDayAus campaign that aims to improve patient outcomes. She tweets as @FreerMary.  She also talked about racism as a health issue, and offered these tips for other @WePublicHealth tweeters:

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11 November, 2013

Tasmanian Aaron Schultz put the spotlight on alcohol and junk food marketing in sport. You can read more about him in this Croakey post. He tweets as @gamechanger1234

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4 November, 2013

Dr Aaron Hollins, a public health registrar with the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (@AaronHollins), provided intensive coverage from a QAIHC workshop on clinical excellence, as well as engaging in some public health advocacy around local council elections, and providing some insights into the impact upon contemporary health and wellbeing of some traumatic history in the Mareeba area.

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28 October, 2013

Dr Ewen McPhee, a GP in rural Queensland (@Fly_Texan_) reported from Cairns and the World Summit on Rural Generalist Medicine and the Rural Medicine Australia 2013 conference, organised by the Rural Doctors Association of Australia and Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (You can read more about him in this Inside Story article). The tweets below capture some of the themes of those events.

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21 October, 2013

Dr Tim Senior, a GP who works in an Aboriginal community controlled health organisation, discussed working in Indigenous health, and a wide range of general practice matters, amongst other things. You can read some of the highlights in this Croakey post.

His energetic tweeting and engagement with followers boosted the account’s numbers considerably, including attracting some high profile followers, as noted below.

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14 October, 2013

Dr Alessandro Demaio, an Australian doctor with qualifications in public health and a passion for global health, particularly tackling chronic diseases, is in the chair. You can read more about his work here.

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7 October, 2013

James Stevens-Cutler, Project Officer with the Public Health Advocacy Institute of WA at Curtin University, discussed various public health initiatives, including Project Robin Hood, a participatory budgeting program from the City of Melville, Walk Over October, and Immunisation Alliance WA.

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30 September, 2013

Rebecca Tooher, a public health researcher at the University of Adelaide, investigated what public health and health services might learn about innovation from the arts. Read more here at her blog.   @RebeccaTooher

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23 September, 2013

Kathleen Wild, a final-year medical student and publicity officer for Doctors for the Environment (@DocsEnvAus) covered this seminar in Brisbane on health and the environment, and also engaged in discussions with a Centre for Air Quality (@CAR_CRE) symposium in Newcastle.

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16 September, 2013

Journalist @MarieMcInerney covered the 42nd annual conference of the Public Health Association of Australia for the Croakey Conference Reporting Service, and also tweeted for @WePublicHealth.

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9 September, 2013

Tweeting for @AusHSI are Emily Bailey and Megan Campbell. Megan is the manager of AusHSI, the Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation, based in Queensland (funded by QUT, QLD Health and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital). Megan is passionate about the development of health services research and research translation in Australia. Emily is the manager of the Centre of Research Excellence in Reducing Healthcare Associated Infections and also works with Megan at AusHSI. Emily has a background in paediatric nursing and respiratory clinical research, and has since developed a strong interest in project and program management within health research.

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2 Sept 2013

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26 August 2013

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19 August 2013. The launch @WePublicHealth tweeter

Page 2 of 2
@WePublicHealth aims to test the use of a rotated curated Twitter account as a new model for citizen journalism with a public health focus.

Every week, a different person – including community members and public health professionals – will be asked to tweet-report and investigate public health matters.

Their focus might be local – for example, documenting the cost of fresh foods in remote communities via tweet-photos – national or global (for example, reporting from international conferences and events).

They might use the account to share a photographic or film-based investigation, or to share links to related resources and research, for example. Or they might convene Twitter chats or interviews around particular topics, events or hashtags.

One of the goals is to encourage creative use of Twitter for public interest discussions and investigations.

If you are interested in a stint on @WePublicHealth, please get in touch with a note about what you’d like to cover. The account is not available to those working for Coca-Cola et al.

@WePublicHealth is inspired by the work of Luke Pearson with @IndigenousX (as previously profiled at Croakey, here and here), and Sarah Stokely who curates @WeMelbourne  and @WeTasmania.

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24 Aug

Dr Yvonne Luxford – @_Y_S_L. A professional with 20 years’ experience working in the health sector, Yvonne interacts and collaborates with all levels of government, health professionals, service providers and advocacy bodies to achieve high quality, accessible and culturally appropriate health care.   Recently finishing as CEO of Palliative Care Australia, Yvonne is a passionate advocate for palliative care on the international stage, through her ongoing involvement with the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network and the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance. She has been especially proud to host the Australian edition of ehospice – broadening the communication reach of news and views about hospice and palliative care. She also has a wealth of experience in public health, with particular interests in Indigenous health, chronic disease prevention, and equity of access to healthcare. She has been Vice President of the Public Health Association of Australia and is currently the Co-Convenor of PHAA’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Special Interest Group, and deeply values her long involvement in the Close the Gap Steering Committee. Yvonne’s previous positions include Manager of Policy and Advocacy for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Senior Executive Officer of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and several years as a university lecturer in various health related subjects. She has qualifications in philosophy and higher education, and her doctoral thesis explored a mixture of policy and medical issues with a focus on child oral health.

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17 Aug

Award-winning writer El Gibbs is in the chair, talking about #CripCroakey – a crowd-funding project that she is running in collaboration with Croakey, with the aim of writing a series of articles about disability and health. Read more here, and support the campaign here.

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8 Aug

Luke Pearson, founder of the successful independent media innovation, @IndigenousX, is in the chair tweeting down the deadline for his crowdfunding campaign at Start Some Good and also talking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health and wellbeing. His crowdfunding blurb says:

“In those 3 years we’ve had over 180 Indigenous hosts online, contributed to countless campaigns, promoted countless events, built indigenousx.com.au, spread overseas with @IndigenousXca (Canada), inspired the creation of multiple other rotating accounts, raised over $150,000 for other campaigns via StartSomeGood, developed a partnership with the Guardian to showcase our hosts, developed a partnership with AIATSIS to get you mob 10% off all of thier products (type IndigenousX in as your discount code on their online shop), got Google to take ‘Aboriginal jokes’ out of their suggested search options, been mentioned in Hansard, and countless other cool things, and that’s all just in our spare time… let’s see what happens when we are doing this stuff full time!

We need more strong Indigenous media voices and we need to make sure those voices reach far and wide, and with your support that’s what we aim to achieve!”

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3- 7 Aug

Dameyon Bonson is a Broome-based Mangarayi and Torres Strait Islander man and is the founder of Black Rainbow Living Well and a Social Venturist. He has presented nationally and internationally on Indigenous Suicide Prevention and recently returned from Montreal and the 28th World Congress on Suicide Prevention. He was recently awarded a Movemeber and beyondblue research grant to develop an APP to reduce stigma in mental health for FIFO men called @Y_Fronts. He is also a social commentator on ethical practices in Indigenous Suicide Prevention and Indigenous Politics on Twitter and can be followed  @DameyonBonson.  Dameyon also provides independent advice on Indigenous LGBTI suicide prevention and organisational support to combat exclusion and strengthen inclusion for both the Indigenous and LGBTI people within workplace environments. He is a Director on the WA AIDS council and member of the National Advisory Committee for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project. You can also follow Black Rainbow on Facebook and Twitter: @BlkRnBow

Amongst other things, Dameyon will be tweeting about the @IndigenousX crowdfunding campaign.

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27 July

Michael Thorn (@MichaelTThorn) is Chief Executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, or FARE (@FAREAustralia), and has been responsible for leading FARE’s efforts to stop alcohol-related harm in Australia since January 2011.

FARE is an independent, not-for-profit organisation which works with communities, governments, health professionals and emergency services across the country to stop alcohol harms by supporting world-leading research, raising public awareness and advocating for changes to alcohol policy.

The Foundation has a strong focus on evidence-based preventive health policies, and recently partnered with the Public Health Association of Australia to launch a new campaign Prevention 1st (@Prevention1stAU), calling on all Australian governments and political parties to commit to a strong preventive health agenda to tackle the nation’s greatest health challenge: chronic disease.

FARE pioneered recent research on the alcohol’s harm to others, which revealed its impact on children and families (#HTO2015). In light of these findings, FARE developed a National framework for action to prevent alcohol-related family violence, partnering with 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty to propose policies and programs for governments that would reduce and prevent family violence (#PreventAlcFV).

As a member of the New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory Alcohol Policy Alliance (#NAAPA), FARE played an integral role in campaigning for action on alcohol ahead of the 2015 NSW State Election in March. These efforts resulted in four significant wins: funding for a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) Clinic, a review of the Community Impact Statement scheme that guides liquor licensing approvals, continuation of the ban on political donations from the alcohol industry, and moving the Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing from the Department of Trade and Investment to the Department of Justice.

Michael previously worked for the federal government as a senior official in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He was a project director in the department’s strategy and delivery division. Michael has a strong strategic policy background, with extensive experience in strategic social policy development and implementation, most recently in Canberra and previously as a policy director of the Western Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet from 2001 until 2008. He has also worked as a policy and management consultant in the fields of housing, Indigenous affairs, regional economic development and employment, and early in his career was a policy adviser and chief of staff to WA Government Ministers.

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20 July

Information Communication Technology and Communication Disability: Harnessing the Affordances of Online Communication

Bronwyn Hemsley @bronwynhemsley is an Associate Professor in Speech Pathology and a Certified Practicing Speech Pathologist at The University of Newcastle, Australia. She has a special interest in people who need or use augmentative and alternative communication aids and technologies, and who cannot rely on natural speech to communicate.

Currently,  she is investigating the use of Social Media, particularly Twitter, as a means for people with severe communication disabilities to get their message across and access evidence-based information and support. With colleagues across the disciplines she is also examining the use of Australia’s Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record by children with disabilities in the transition from child to adult health services, and safety in hospital for people with communication difficulties associated with stroke, cerebral palsy, or autism.

Bronwyn co-administers an online forum @WeSpeechies for speech language pathologists and other professionals interested in communication and swallowing disorders. During her week curating @WePublicHealth she hopes to engage with the public and across health disciplines on: views and experiences of personally controlled e-health records, using online forums to engage people who have communication difficulties, and using Twitter to disseminate and translate research findings to policy and practice in the fields of disability and health.

See here for details of a Twitter chat that she convened.

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13 July

Dr George Crisp – @DrGCrisp – is a Perth GP, WA chair and a National Committee member of Doctors for the Environment Australia. He has a longstanding interest in how our health is impacted by environmental degradation, sustainability in the health service and is involved in advocacy relating to community and environmental health matters.

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6 July

It’s NAIDOC Week, a time to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,  and the theme – We all Stand on Sacred Ground: Learn, Respect and Celebrate – highlights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ strong spiritual and cultural connection to land and sea. Tweeting is Professor Kerry Arabena – @ArabenaKerry – Chair for Indigenous Health and Professor and Director, Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, and formerly the Professor and Director of Indigenous Health Research in the School for Indigenous Health, Monash University. A descendant of the Meriam people of the Torres Strait, and a former social worker with a doctorate in human ecology, Professor Arabena has an extensive background in public health, administration, community development and research working in senior roles in indigenous policy and sexual health. Her work has been in areas such as gender issues, social justice, human rights, access and equity, service provision, harm minimisation, and citizenship rights and responsibilities. She was a founding Co-Chair of the new national Indigenous peak body, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, a collective voice to lobby governments on Indigenous issues. Don’t miss her Croakey LongRead about love.

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29 June

Melanie Pescud – @mel_pescud – is a Research Fellow at ANU working on “A systems approach to healthy and equitable eating” with Professor Sharon Friel and Ellie Malbon. She has worked in the areas of child obesity prevention, health promotion, seniors’ mental health, alcohol warning statement labelling, alcohol use in teenagers, nutrition literacy, Indigenous health behaviour, workplace health promotion and evaluation, health policy development, and qualitative research methodologies.

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22 June

Rebecca Vassarotti – @RebeccaVassarot – is an independent consultant and community advocate.  Currently she is a community member of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal working in the areas of energy and water, and guardianship.  In addition, She is on the Boards of the ACT Racing and Gambling Commission and Community Housing Canberra.  Previously, Rebecca has held roles including the General Manager of Policy and Programs at Alzheimers Australia, Deputy CEO of Australian Council of Social Service and a/CEO and Policy Director of Consumers Health Forum.  From 2003-2013 she was the Executive Director of YWCA of Canberra and from 2013 until 2014 she was on the boards of the ACT and Australian Councils of Social Service. This week, Rebecca will cover the ACOSS national conference (amongst other things), with a particular focus on the relationship between health and inequality.

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15 June

Dameyon Bonson is a Broome-based Mangarayi/Maubiag Island man and Founder of Black Rainbow Living Well, an organisation for Indigenous LGBQTI Suicide Prevention. He was in Montreal this week for the 28th World Congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention New Discoveries and Technologies in Suicide Prevention. http://iasp2015.com

He is facilitating what is believed to be a world first: a workshop to identify the social determinants of health affecting Indigenous LGBT people. The workshop is entitled Intersecting Indigenous Rainbows – International LGBT First Nations and Two-Spirited People in Suicide Prevention   https://www.conftool.pro/iasp2015/index.php?page=browseSessions&form_session=48

Dameyon’s work in suicide prevention also includes advocating for ethical research practices that benefit Indigenous people. He also provides independent advice on Indigenous LGBTI suicide prevention and combating exclusion and strengthening inclusion for both the Indigenous and LGBTI people within organisation structures. Dameyon is also interested in digital interventions in mental health and hopes to share some exciting news during his week @WePublicHealth. He has written for Croakey, Crikey, Good Men Project, The Stringer and the Star Observer.

You can follow him on Twitter @DameyonBonson.  You can also follow Black Rainbow on Facebook and Twitter: @BlkRnBow.

His coverage of the conference was superb, and only a fraction of his tweets are captured below. Note the conference analytics!!

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8 June

This week, Melissa Sweet, curator of this account, is saying thanks to many people who have been working with Croakey and related projects in recent times.

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1 June

This week @annaknicholson and @Pele_78 are sharing results from a national research project about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking, known as Talking About the Smokes.

Talking About the Smokes (TATS) is a large national research project to better understand the pathways to smoking and quitting for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to evaluate what works in assisting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to quit smoking. The project is a collaboration between research institutions and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) and their state and national representative bodies. It is modelled on the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Project Policy Evaluation Project with adaptation to suit the context of smoking cessation and tobacco control for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. It is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health.

Anna Nicholson (@annaknicholson) is a PhD student with TATS, and is tweeting project results on behalf of the team. Anna grew up in Ballarat, Victoria, but migrated north 7 years ago to thaw in the tropical Top End. Originally a Physiotherapist with a keen interest in chronic disease management, Anna has spent the last 5 years at Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, working on the TATS Project.

Pele Bennet (@Pele_78) is a proud Waggadaggam Woman of the Torres Strait Islands. She was born and raised in Brisbane and is a proud member of the Indigenous community of Brisbane. Pele is also a Director on the board of Queensland’s oldest community-controlled health organisation (ATSICHS), and Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee (AHPA) and director on the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA). Pele has been an Indigenous Health Worker and has worked in Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Prevention for Queensland Health for many years, including as a member of the Talking About the Smokes Project Reference Group. Pele will guide discussion of what these results mean for those working to reduce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking.

You can find references for this week’s tweets at:  https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/10

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29 May – #IHMayDay15 – sees Pele Bennet, who was the launch tweeter for @WePublicHealth in August 2013, back in the chair.

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25-28 May

Alison Fairleigh – @AlisonFairleigh – did a superb job covering the National Rural Health Conference in Darwin (also check the stories from Jennifer Doggett for the Croakey Conference Reporting service). Alison is a prominent #ruralhealth Twitterati and describes herself as: “Passionate. Extroverted. Advocating for rural mental health & farming communities. Former Qld Rural Woman of the Year. Australia Day Ambassador.” Follow the #ruralhealthconf and #NRHC15 streams too.

You can see many of her tweets in the Croakey reports. Here is just a brief selection:

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18 May

Dr Helen Schultz – “Shrink, coach and mentor of doctors in training. Public speaker. Author of ‘How Shrinks Think’. Medical education specialist” – is at the helm this week. Amongst other things, @drHelenschultz will be talking about the #MedicineSocial conference that she recently convened in Melbourne. More detail about it is here.

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11 May 2015

Kerrie Noonan @Keznoo covered the 4th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference, Community Resilience in Practice, in Bristol.

Kerrie Noonan has been working a clinical psychologist in the area of grief, loss and palliative care since 1995 and is she is the cofounder of The GroundSwell Project and Dying To Know Day (August 8th) an organisation that exits to create social change and build death literacy in the community. Kerrie is currently completing her PhD in death studies at the University of Western Sydney.

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4 May 2015

Penelope Smith – @LopeyPen – is a Public Health Academic at Australian Catholic University (St Patrick’s Campus) – @ACUmedia – and is a member of the event management team assisting Creating Futures Convener Ernest Hunter and the Steering Committee for the sixth Creating Futures Conference – @CF15_Cairns. This week Penelope is tweeting on behalf of the conference.

Penelope was previously the Stakeholder Management Officer at the Lowitja Institute (National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research) – @LowitjaInstitut – and the Link Coordinator for its predecessor Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. She was also a Public Health Academic at La Trobe University (Melbourne Campus) – @Latrobe.

She is passionate about all things public health, social justice, community engagement and imparting this passion to her students. Sadly sometimes this passion results in typos so be forgiving this week!

Creating Futures 2015: Practice, Evidence and Creativity in Tropical and Remote Settings, Cairns, 11-14 May 2015.

Creating Futures 2015 is the sixth in a series in which the populations of interest are Indigenous peoples from Australia, New Zealand and beyond, the residents of Australia’s neighbouring island nations, and people living with and recovering from mental and/or physical illness or disability in remote and tropical areas.

As with previous Creating Futures conferences there will be a focus on evidence and innovation in identifying and addressing the social determinants of mental and physical health and wellbeing. Special areas of interest will include:

Creativity;
Addressing social and behavioural determinants of chronic disease;
Impediments to progress in chronic disease management: policy and practice in substance misuse;
Sustaining our strength, resilience and imagination. …. Empowerment starts with Me;
Detained populations (forensic and other);
West Papua – forgotten refugees … and more.
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27 April 2015

Dr Erica Crome – @EricaCrome – is an Early Career Researcher and Psychologist in the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use (@CREComorbidity) and is based in the Centre of Emotional Health at Macquarie University (@MacquarieUniCEH). Experience in research, clinical and corporate settings has made her passionate about enhancing the quality and accessibility of mental health research to improve the lives of the millions Australians with lived experience of a mental disorder.

She aims to start conversations about engaging more consumers in research, increasing the accessibility of research for practitioners and consumers, breaking down research silos and supporting the next generation of health and medical researchers.

Watch this space for an exciting week of live updates from mental health events, twitter interviews and a mash-up of psychology, health economics, policy and ethics.

Monday 27th: Mental Health Services and Treatment in Australia – including reactions to the National Mental Health Commission Report

Live tweets from “Silence no more: The mental and physical health consequences of child sexual abuse, and what can be done about it” http://www.ccd.edu.au/events/conferences/2015/silencenomore/index.php

Tuesday 28th: Implementation Science – what determines how innovations travel from research to clinical settings.

Wednesday 29th: Resources for practitioners and consumers – where to access high-quality information and treatment (at the lowest cost)

Thursday 30th: How do we engage more consumers in research and service planning – and why this is important

Friday 1st: Supporting the next generation of mental health researchers – Early Career Researchers and Women in Health and Medical Research

This includes Twitter interview with Prof Maree Teesson – Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use at 1 pm. As a winner of the 2014 Sydney Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers, named in The Australian Financial Review and Westpac’s 2014 100 Women of Influence Awards and a Fellow to the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science, this is an interview not to miss!

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20 April 2015

A tag-team of social determinants of health experts were at the helm on behalf of the new Centre for Research Excellence on Health Equity, which is being officially launched this week – Follow @crehealthequity.

Monday:
Fran Baum (@baumfran) is Professor of Public Health and Director of the Southgate Institute of Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University. Professor Baum is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. In 2008 she was awarded an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship focusing on development of effective government and community responses to social determinants of health inequity and social exclusion. She holds several other national competitive grants and is widely published on aspects of health inequity and the social determinants of health including Aboriginal people’s health, primary health care, health promotion, Healthy Cities, and social capital.

Tuesday
Sharon Friel (@SharonFrieloz) is Professor of Health Equity and Director of the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet), Australian National University. She is also Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy ANU. Between 2005 and 2008 she was the Head of the Scientific Secretariat (University College London) of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. She is the Co-Director of the CRE in Health Equity (@CREhealthequity). She publishes widely in the social determinants of health equity, including in trade and investment, urbanisation, food systems, and climate change; and the analysis of governance, policy and regulatory processes and their effectiveness at addressing health inequities.

Wednesday
Gemma Carey – @gemcarey – is a Research Fellow with the Regulatory Network at the Australian National University. She holds a PhD in social policy and population health from the University of Melbourne. Her research sits at the critical interface between public health, public administration and social policy. In particular, Dr Carey has investigated processes of ‘joining up’ within within government and between government and non-government organisations. She tweeted for @WePublicHealth last week (see more bio details in the entry below).

Thursday
Matt Fisher is a Research Fellow with the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity. He is currently working as Project Manager on a 3-year ARC Discovery research project on Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity in Australian Health Policy. Matt completed a PhD in philosophy at the University of Adelaide in 2009. His research interests are focused on the social determinants of mental health and their implications for public policy and political ethics. Matt also has extensive experience with social housing policy and non-government, not-for-profit housing providers. He has a strong commitment to values of environmental sustainability and is particularly interested in issues of urban design, in relation to both public health and sustainability outcomes.

Friday
Phillip Baker (@PhilBakerNZ) is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Regulatory Institutions Network, Australian National University and has a PhD from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. His research interests span public policy, political science and global health with emphasis on the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), trade liberalization and population nutrition, regulations shaping infant and young child feeding, and agenda-setting in public health (how and why are health issues politically prioritised or neglected). He has lectured previously at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, on globalization and health and worked as an intern at the World Health Organization on global nutrition policy.

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13 April 2015

Dr Gemma Carey – @gemcarey – is a Research Fellow with the Regulatory Network at the Australian National University. She holds a PhD in social policy and population health from the University of Melbourne. Her research sits at the critical interface between public health, public administration and social policy. In particular, Dr Carey has investigated processes of ‘joining up’ within within government and between government and non-government organisations.

Dr Carey has published a widely on different aspects of public administration and public health. She has a monograph on joined-up government and public administration with Melbourne University Press due for release in 2015 – ‘Grassroots to Government: Joining-up in Australia’, and is Chief Editor and contributor to the upcoming book ‘Designing and Implementing Public Policy: Cross-sectoral Debates’, to be published by Routledge in 2015.

In addition to her academic research, she runs a policy forum – the Power to Persuade (PTP) (an annual symposium and blog). PTP is aimed at improving the relationships between policymakers, academics and the community sector. Running since 2011, PTP is sponsored by the Victorian Government and a range of NGOs and peak bodies (www.powertopersuade.org.au).

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7 April 2015

Croakey moderator and journalist Marie McInerney  covered a Prisons Health conference this week in Geraldton, WA, as a precursor to Croakey’s launch of the #JustJustice crowd-funding campaign.

Marie has worked as a journalist and editor for more than 30 years, including for Reuters and Australian Associated Press. She was founding editor of Insight, a specialist social issues magazine published in Melbourne by the Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) and is a moderator and contributor to Croakey. She has also worked as a lecturer and tutor in journalism and writing at the University of South Australia and RMIT. She tweets at @mariemcinerney.
Read her report of the conference here.

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30 March 2015

Catriona Bonfiglioli – @CatBonfiglioli- is a media and journalism academic at UTS and a PHAA member tweeting on behalf of the NSW branch of the PHAA.

She is Senior Lecturer, Media Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Catriona is an award-winning professional journalist with 15 years’ experience as a reporter, sub-editor and specialist medical journalist. Catriona joined PHAA in 2000 and serves on the NSW branch executive.

Catriona has been researching the role of media in public health and medicine since 1999. Her doctoral research examined media discourse about genetic technologies including cloning, GM food, and the Human Genome Project. Her postdoctoral research has focused on the role of media in overweight, obesity, physical activity and inactivity.

Catriona is lead chief investigator of the ARC Discovery Project 1096251: Bonfiglioli, Chapman, & Smith. ‘Changing the media diet – Investigating the power of the news media to prevent obesity’.  Catriona is the author of Reporting Obesity: A Resource for Journalists, a resource for journalists published by the NSW Centre for Overweight and Obesity: http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/public-health/coo/publications/reporto.php

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23 March 2015

Gemma Jacklyn – @GemmaJacklyn – is a doctoral student, tutor and lecturer in epidemiology at the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney and holds an NHMRC postgraduate scholarship. She’s interested in better understanding the benefits and harms associated with breast cancer screening. Her main focus is overdiagnosis and overtreatment. She supports informed choice about breast cancer screening and has co-authored a paper about this in The Lancet.

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16 March 2015

Chad Foulkes, Healthy Together Geelong Coordinator for the City of Greater Geelong – @TorquayChad – tweeted about the social determinants of health, and the roles of land use planning, infrastructure & activation as areas where local government can work for public health.

Chad has led Healthy Together Geelong based at the City of Greater Geelong which is taking a systems approach to address obesity. Previously he worked in the WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention and CO-OPS (the collaboration for community-based obesity prevention initiatives) at Deakin University where he designed and delivered professional development nationally. He has led teams in local government on community planning, development, health, engagement and governance. He has won two IAP2 awards and served on the IAP2 worldwide judging panel and chaired the Australasian IAP2 judging panel. He is a member of the Academic Board for the Masters of International and Community Development at Deakin. Additionally he runs a consultancy.

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9 March 2015

This week, Mary Freer – @FreerMary – is tweeting for Change Day, a people led, accessible and energetic social movement for better health outcomes, which is marked on 11 March.

Change Day invites you to be change-makers in health, aged care and community services right across Australia.

The Change Day movement says: “It’s easy to get caught up believing that change needs to start somewhere else. We can end up waiting for someone else to ‘fix’ things or waiting for someone to give us permission to be amazing, or even just to do what we know needs to be done.

“Don’t wait any longer! Wherever you are and whatever your role is in health and community care: you can make a difference. Together our potential is enormous.”

Mary has contributed to Australia’s healthcare system reform in a variety of executive and leadership roles over the last 20 years. She has worked with Health Workforce Australia, Healthdirect Australia, Premier and Cabinet in South Australia  and more recently as a consultant to health and community care services across Australia.

Mary is the Founder and CEO of Change Day Australia and works closely with Change Day leaders in many countries across the world to bring about global improvements to our health and social care systems.

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2 March 2015

This week was an extra special program – many thanks to Kristine Olaris, @kristineolaris, CEO of Women’s Health East in Melbourne, and her colleagues for organising a packed schedule of tweeting about women’s health.

Correction: Women’s Health Loddon Mallee does have a Twitter account – follow @WomensHealthLM

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23 Feb 2015

Public health lawyer, author and blogger Michele Simon –  @MicheleRSimon – has been investigating conflicts of interest and the Dietitians Association of Australia.  Read more here.

Simon, president of Eat Drink Politics, a corporate watchdog consulting firm in the US, has released an Australian edition of “And Now A Word From Our Sponsors” detailing close links between the food industry and DAA.

Below are some grabs from a tweet-chat conducted on Feb 23 with Simon about her report (apologies to those in the US whose plans to join the chat were spoiled by my mixing up the time difference).

I asked Simon what advice she had for journalists; whether we should routinely ask sources about their conflicts of interest.

Public health advocates Rosemary Stanton and Amanda Lee also commented:

Meanwhile, US public health nutritionist Marion Nestle also commented on the report at her blog, Food Politics.

Note: The DAA did not contribute to the tweet-chat but made this comment beforehand

*** 16 Feb 2015

Ann Arnold – @ann_arnold – a journalist with Background Briefing, Radio National’s investigative documentary program, is in the chair this week, following her recent program, Doctors in Distress (audio and transcript are available here). She began her career at the SMH, and has worked across numerous Radio National programs, including Late Night Live and Life Matters. She is an occasional print freelancer (The Monthly, The Drum).

Ann plans to tweet from 3-4pm each day from Monday to Friday, on the theme of stress. Stress for medicos, mostly, but will broaden to all workplaces and causes. She is keen to hear your stories, thoughts and research.

You can also read her article for Croakey.

***

9 Feb 2015
Miriam Herzfeld – @MiriamHerzfeld1 – has worked in the community sector, for the University of Tasmania, and for both local and state governments in several states in Australia. Miriam currently works as a Public Health Consultant and is an Associate of the University of Tasmania. Miriam convenes Tasmania’s Social Determinants of Health Advocacy Network.

***

2 Feb 2015
Renee Williams – @Ren_Williams – is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman who has been working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs for the last 17 years, with a particular focus in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

She will be talking about the aftermath of the Queensland election and the implications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and their communities, health and wellbeing. Renee will also discuss the Apunipima election charter, and wider public health issues, particularly from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective.

Renee has a certificate in Diplomacy Training at UNSW, Cert IV in Indigenous Leadership at AILC, Assoc Degree in Business Administration (ACU) and Master of Public Health (Deakin Uni).  Renee has vast experience and knowledge from the roles that she has undertaken in local, regional, state, national and organisations, including the Victorian Aboriginal Health Services, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, and Oxfam Australia.

Just over 12 months ago Renee returned to Cairns from living in Canberra and working at the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, where she was the National Policy Manager. Currently she is the Senior Project Officer with Apunipima Cape York Health Council where her role is about politics, strategy and policy platforming with a particular focus on health reform for Cape York Communities.

Through her experience over the years, Renee understands the importance of self-determination of her people to create change for themselves and their communities.

During the week, Renee conducted a “Twitter-view” with Dameyon Bonson about his crowdfunding campaign for the Black Rainbow Living Well Foundation, and you can read the Storify here (some extracts below).

****

***

26 Jan 2015

The Queensland election was the focus this week of Dr Mark Bahnisch – @MarkBahnisch – a sociologist who teaches at the Australian College of Applied Psychology. He has worked in health policy and health systems research at The University of Queensland and is also currently working on a narrative of the Queensland Doctors Dispute for ASMOF. Additionally, he is a long time observer of Queensland and Australian politics, and his book, Everything You Need To Know About Queensland But Were Afraid to Ask, is forthcoming with New South Publishing in May.

***

19 Jan 2015
Mark Metherell – @metherellmark – is communications director of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia.  The views he expresses @WePublicHealth are his own and not necessarily those of CHF.   Mark joined CHF two years ago and previously wrote on health issues for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

For @WePublicHealth, Mark proposes to give the consumers’ perspective on the continuing debate over the co-payment and the future of Medicare.

***

12 Jan 2015
John Mendoza – @johno0910 – is a Director of ConNetica, a boutique consulting practice. He has been involved in over 100 mental health and wellbeing projects in every Australian jurisdiction since establishing ConNetica in early 2007.  These have involved working with and evaluating programs targeting people with mild to severe and complex mental ill health, long-term unemployed men and families, service development and workforce development.

He has published extensively in both grey and peer reviewed literature on mental health and mental health reform and been a keynote speaker at over 50 conferences. He is the co-author of a number of major reports on mental health reform in the past decade most notably – Not for Service: Experiences of Despair and Injustice in Mental Health Care in Australia (in 2005) and Obsessive Hope Disorder: Reflections on Thirty Years of Mental Health Reform in Australia and Visions for the Future (in 2013).

Prior to his role at ConNetica, John has held several executive positions including Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Council of Australia (MHCA), and Chief Executive of the Australian Sports Drug Agency. He was appointed in 2008 as the Inaugural Chair, National Advisory Council on Mental Health, to the Federal Health Minister, The Hon Nicola Roxon MP. He is presently:

Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health, Education and Science at the University of the Sunshine Coast; and
Adjunct Associate Professor, Mental Health Policy Unit, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney.
Chair, headspace Maroochydore
Member of the Foundation Board of the Queensland Mind and Neuroscience Institute, chaired by Angus Houston AC.
In 2002, John was awarded the Queensland University of Technology, Vice-Chancellor’s Outstanding Alumni Award for Innovation and Excellence and the Faculty of Health’s 2002 Outstanding Alumni Award. In 2010, he was awarded a Life Award for lifetime achievement in suicide prevention. He has a Bachelor of Education and Grad Dip in Health Promotion.

***

5 Jan 2015
Marie McInerney has worked as a journalist and editor for more than 30 years, including for Reuters and Australian Associated Press. She was founding editor of Insight, a specialist social issues magazine published in Melbourne by the Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) and is a moderator and contributor to Croakey. She has also worked as a lecturer and tutor in journalism and writing at the University of South Australia and RMIT. She tweets at @mariemcinerney.