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Research Projects

The Discipline of Public Health is involved in individual and collaborative research in three principal domains: the health of women and children, environmental health (including occupational health and infectious disease), and health services (with a special emphasis on health technology assessment).

These areas of interest link the Discipline with researchers in other University Departments, the South Australian Department of Human Services, as well as other Australian and international research institutions. The strategic research of the Discipline is supported largely through successful competitive grant applications. Applied research is funded by invited tenders and contracts with government and other organisations.

For an extensive list of areas of interest please refer to individual staff profiles. Examples of current research projects in the Discipline of Public Health are:

North Western Men's Health Study: A cohort study of health and ageing in men in North West Adelaide. Professor Janet Hiller, Dr Megan Warin (Department of Social Inquiry), Associate Professor Gary Wittert (Department of Medicine) and Dr Peter O'Loughlin (Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science).

Older women living alone in the community: the role of informal support and implications for formal health service use.. Ruth Walker and Amy Salter, collaborating with Mary Luszcz from the School of Psychology, Flinders University.

Linking health technology assessment and community perspectives on new health technologies. Annette Braunack-Mayer, Janet Hiller, Tanya Mikati and Jackie Street, in collaboration with Richard Ashcroft from Imperial College, University of London and Karen Facey from the Faculty of Information and Mathematical Statistics, University of Glasgow.

The Second Australian National Blood Pressure Study; compliance substudy. Philip Ryan and Kristyn Willson, collaborating with Mark Nelson from the University of Tasmania, Lindon Wing from Flinders University and Chris Reid from Monash University.

A randomised trial of DHA in pregnancy to prevent postnatal depressive symptoms and enhance neurodevelopment in children: The DOMInO trial.Amy Salter, Lisa Yelland and Philip Ryan, collaborating with principal investigator Dr Maria Makrides and her colleagues at the Child Health Research Institute.

Dislocation risk factors in hip arthroplasty: Results from the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry. Philip Ryan and Nicole Pratt, collaborating with Ross Crawford, Jonathan Conroy and Sarah Whitehouse from the Prince Charles Hospital and QUT, Brisbane, and Stephen Graves from the AOA NJRR and the University of Melbourne.

Early warning systems for public health interventions.Janet Hiller, Linda Mundy and Tracy Merlin collaborating with members of the Australian and New Zealand Horizon Scanning Network and Euroscan (The European Information Network on New and Changing Health Technologies).

Diffusion of health technology. Janet Hiller and Tracy Merlin, collaborating with Professor Andrew Webster from the University of York and Professor Pascale Quester from the Faculty of the Professions, University of Adelaide.

Resilience and uptake of smoking in high risk groups. Janet Hiller and Peter Baghurst collaborating with Deborah Turnbull from the School of Psychology, University of Adelaide and Caroline Miller from the Cancer Council of South Australia and Della Rowley from the SA Department of Health.

Lead and cancer. Dino Pisaniello collaborating with Malcolm Sim and Geza Benke from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University

Work and vision. Dino Pisaniello collaborating with Bruno Piccoli from the University of Milan.

Risk assessment for environmental health in Adelaide based on weather, air pollution and population health outcomes. Peng Bi, Dino Pisaniello, Philip Ryan, collaborating with Monika Nitschke from the South Australian Department of Health, and Beth Curran from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Geno-toxicity of dust extracts and nanoparticles. He Wang & Dino Pisaniello, collaborating with Barbara Sanderson from School of Medicine, Flinders University, Ian Musgrave from School of Medical Sciences, Adelaide University, Andreas Schmidtmumm Department of Geology and Geophysics, Adelaide University and Marcus Cattani from Pilbara Iron Pty Ltd, WA.

Exhaled nitric oxide and lung function in underground coal miners. He Wang, Dino Pisaniello and Amy Salter, collaborating with Paul Thomas from School of Medicine, University of New South Wales.

Epidemiology of pneumoconiosis in Shandong Province. He Wang, collaborating with Rui Wang from Shandong Academy of Occupational Health and Occupational Medicine, China).