Institute for Health Transformation

Last Friday, visiting Professor Francesco Branca and GLOBE team members volunteered at Farm My School on the Bellarine Peninsula. Farm My School is an initiative that takes a whole of school community approach to transforming schools into regenerative farms and market gardens that are located on their grounds.   Professor Branca and GLOBE staff enjoyed a home-grown lunch in between gardening and learning to pickle beetroot. Kathryn Backholer Colin Bell Steve Allender Erica Reeve Carolina Venegas Hargous Kristine Løkås Vigsnes Cindy Needham

I am excited to share our latest paper examining the effect of pregnancy intention on the completion of the maternity continuum of care. Given the high prevalence of unintended pregnancies and the low coverage of maternity continuum of care completion, this study addresses a critical public health concern. This study finds that intended pregnancy significantly increases the likelihood of completing the maternity continuum of care, underscoring the importance of strengthening efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies and provide comprehensive support to women across the maternity care pathway. 🙏 A heartfelt thank you to my supervisors, Professor Linda Sweet, Dr Vidanka Vasilevski, and Dr Ayele Geleto Bali, for their unwavering guidance and continuous support! https://lnkd.in/gqsp6Jg8 #MaternalHealth #PregnancyIntention #ContinuumOfCare #UnintendedPregnancy #Deakin School of Nursing & Midwifery; Centre for Quality & Patient Safety Research

🚨 Hot off the press 🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🙌 🎉 Systematic review and meta analysis of post-secondary students food insecurity. Pretty bleak findings, with pooled analysis suggesting more than 40% of students are food insecure. 💡 Time for some new solutions to student food insecurity 🤔 Open access, read it here: https://lnkd.in/gv_aJYhb Matthew Dunn Bolanle Olajide Lisa Melleuish Penelope Pitt Deakin University Deakin University Student Association Institute for Health Transformation

In February this year, Helena Rodi and Adyya Gupta attended Science Meets Parliament – Australia’s premier initiative for fostering meaningful connections between the STEM sector and policymakers. Read more about Helena and Adyya's insights into their experience and how they were able to make the most of this opportunity.

$1.6 billion could be saved if we averted about 87,500 potentially preventable dental hospitalisations in 2022/23. Rates of potentially preventable dental hospitalisations increased overall between 2022/23 vs 2022/2021, but the largest increase was among children aged 5-9 years.   Economically better for the healthcare system to appropriately fund essential oral healthcare.   #oralhealth #publichealth #healthequity

Effective diabetes care is more than just looking after people’s physical health. It’s about seeing the whole person and their unique life circumstances. That’s something we pride ourselves on at The Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations (ACADI) – we always try to take into consideration the myriad psychosocial factors that impact a person’s wellbeing. Behavioural science is the key to understanding the full picture, helping us pinpoint the barriers to effective care and what we can put in place to boost health and wellbeing. That makes the work of Elizabeth Holmes-Truscott, our Behavioural Platform Lead, absolutely essential. She works alongside diabetes researchers to help them understand the range of impacts their interventions may have on people living with diabetes, so they can develop practical solutions. She’s focused on the human side of diabetes care including understanding and addressing barriers to optimal health and wellbeing, and diabetes stigma – an area in which she’s a renowned world leader. As Deputy Director of the The Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes she co-led the international consensus on ending diabetes stigma, published last year in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, and has seen global support through the pledge to #EndDiabetesStigma, endorsed by more than 3,500 people and organisations worldwide. Elizabeth’s latest research explores how we can ensure people with type 2 diabetes from rural communities are better represented in research. We’re really proud of the groundbreaking work she and her team are doing. We know it’s improving health equity and making a huge difference to the lives of many people living with diabetes. #diabetes #diabetescare #diabetesresearch #behaviouralscience

The healthiest choice should be the easiest choice. But right now – that's not the case. The built environment of where we live plays a huge role in our health – and particularly, in the health of our littlest Victorians. Living somewhere with poor access to fresh food, higher numbers of fast-food outlets, and unsafe or inadequate areas for outdoor activities is directly linked to worse physical health. That’s why we’ve supported Dr Cindy Needham from Deakin University to create the Food Retail Outlet Monitoring Tool, and why we’re supporting hundreds of community groups around the state to make nutritious, culturally appropriate food and inclusive movement more accessible to everyone. Learn more about our work here: https://lnkd.in/gke43Dj5

Excited to share my latest publication- and the 1st published paper of my PhD  – titled  “Health-related quality of life, service utilisation and costs for anxiety disorders in children and young people: A systematic review and meta-analysis” A huge thank you to my supervisors Lisa Gold, Ha Le, Dr Monique Seymour, and my other co-authors Kaitlyn McKenna, Anh Ho, and Shalika Bohingamu Mudiyanselage, for their collaboration and support ❤️ . Read the open-access article here:

Congratulations Dr Marcus Sellars and collaborators for the Wicking Trust grant win for 'Enhancing advance care planning through systems thinking and technological innovation'. A project to develop an AI-assisted advance care planning (ACP) assistant within Touchstone Life Care’s digital platform and co-designed with older Australians and healthcare professionals. Read more about the project 👉deakin.au/3Ebd0jC

Today was an absolute pleasure meeting MP Joanne Ryan, the Chief Government Whip, Federal Member of Lalor following up from the #SMP2025 Science & Technology Australia in her electorate- the beautiful #Werribee ⏳We discussed many things ranging from education, women leadership, childcare reforms, cultural diversity and most importantly our current food environments and rising health impacts of digital food environments🍟🍕. Looking forward to many more such discussions and making a real-world impact through continued efforts. #SMP2025 Science & Technology Australia Institute for Health Transformation Deakin University Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth)