Public Health Education and Research Program - Innovations Program
A Life-Course Perspective on Health: Strengthening and Extending the Population Health Workforce and Research Capacity
Collaborators
Queensland University of Technology
What Is The Study Trying To Find Out?
The Innovations program facilitates and ensures a coordinated approach to priority research and training issues in the area of public health education and research. Specific activities of the overall program include:
- Evaluating the current curricula provided to the public health and related workforces to determine gaps in education and training on key issues in life-course influences on health and the methodologies associated with life-course research and practice;
- Developing and delivering life-course curriculum modules to public health and related professionals;
- Developing and validating standardised tools to measure early-life exposures at individual, family and community levels and the health status of children and youth for use in life-course projects; and
- Producing a report summarising key health and development measurement tools, and a resource library cataloguing the available tools.
One of the objectives of the Innovations program is to increase the national research capacity by improving the accessibility and quality of measurement tools available to public health researchers and practitioners.
The Centre for Developmental Health has a subcontract with Queensland University of Technology to enhance national research capacity by:
- Contributing to preparing a technical report documenting the key measures for assessing health and development and related indicators, during the early years of life (up to age 12 years) suitable for use in Australia. The report will include recommendations of priority areas for future measurement development in Australia (eg. for vulnerable and high-priority populations)
- Contributing to developing a library of key measures including data on reliability and validity and norms for different populations
- Preparing a report summarising key data items for inclusion in large population-based studies, where it is inappropriate to employ full-scale measures
What Are Its Benefits?
Long-term, this project will enhance opportunities for multi-disciplinary, national research and practice that addresses life-course determinants of health. It will further enhance the quality and consistency of research and the ability to compare data across studies by providing an accessible, recommended set of core measures that are valid for Australian populations.
The proposed research innovations will enhance the evidence base regarding the reliability and validity of selected measures, and will provide Australian norms. This will make a significant contribution to population health research in Australia at this time. Within the next few years, at least two significant population studies of health will commence (ie. the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, and the second wave of the WA Child Health Survey). The results of this Innovations program will inform the selection of measures to be employed by these important studies which will provide benchmark data on the health and wellbeing of Australian children and young people.
How Is It Being Done?
Dr Jan Nicholson at QUT will oversee the measurement activities for this project, with input from each of the partners, with each consortium member contributing to areas relevant to their expertise. In addition, designated sites will undertake at least one measurement development or validation study. The details of these studies will be finalised on the basis of the findings in the initial report.
The Centre for Developmental Health is developing a series of measurement tool modules for inclusion in the web-based measurement library. The modules will be structured according to key content areas as agreed at June 2003 meeting in Perth for use in population-based studies. The modules will provide a range of item pools for assessing various health outcomes and life-course determinants in a brief self-report or interview format.
Where Is It Up To?
- A framework of measurement has been developed
- The item library is being developed
Funded By?
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)—Public Health Grant
Project Team
Professor Beth Newman,
Director, Centre for Public Health Research, Queensland University of Technology
Email: b.newman@qut.edu.au
Professor Steve Zubrick
Email: S.Zubrick@curtin.edu.au
