Grant Success

Latest Grant Success

Congratulations to La Trobe University Faculty of Health Science staff on their recent success in gaining nationally competitive grants.

Professor Anthony Smith, Dr Jeffrey Grierson and Dr Garrett Prestage

Professor Anthony Smith, Dr Jeffrey Grierson and Dr Garrett Prestage of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society were awarded a NHMRC Project grant of more than $390,000 for their study titled Monogamy as an HIV and STI prevention strategy for gay men. Dr Prestage is also part of another research team to be led by the University of NSW, which won a NHMRC grant to look at social norms in HIV/STI risk and risk reduction behaviours among men who have sex with men.

Dr Nora Shields and Professor Nicholas Taylor

Dr Nora Shields and Professor Nicholas Taylor with Professor Bo Fernhall will receive a NHMRC project grant ($176,125) to investigate a community-based strength training program that aims to improve fitness among young adults with Down Syndrome.

Professor Nicholas Taylor and Dr Nora Shields

Professor Nicholas Taylor and Dr Nora Shields were also awarded $233,079 for a project titled Do additional allied health service for rehabilitation reduce length of stay without compromising patient outcomes? It is one of the first projects to be funded under new NHMRC Partnership grant scheme, which aims to establish effective connections between policy decision-makers and researchers.

Professor Christine Bigby

Professor Christine Bigby is one of three researchers, led by Australian Catholic University, awarded an ARC Linkage grant to look at the aged care service needs of people with life-long intellectual disability. The research will inform policy and program development across the disability, aged care, and health sectors and aims to improve capacity to respond to the health and ageing issues of older people with intellectual disability to improve their quality of life. Professor Bigby’s research colleagues for the project are Professor Ruth Webber and Professor Barbara Bowers.

Dr Marilyn Di Stefano and Associate Professor Wendy Macdonald

Dr Marilyn Di Stefano from the Division of Allied Health and Associate Professor Wendy Macdonald from the Division of Health Studies are part of international ARC Linkage collaboration led by Monash University that will develop evidence-based solutions to enhance older driver safety through screening, innovative training and other management solutions. The five-year project was awarded $1.2million and will involve researchers in Australia and Canada.

Associate Professor Mark Gussy

Associate Professor Mark Gussy is a member of an ARC Linkage research team led by Melbourne University that will conduct a four-year project titled Teeth tales: A culturally competent community intervention for child oral health in low SES area of urban Melbourne, which aims to inform Dental Health Services Victoria policy and funding decisions for Victorian families and services.

2009 ARC Linkage grants – success for the Faculty of Health Science researchers

Congratulations to La Trobe Faculty of Health Science researchers for their success in gaining six ARC Linkage grants, announced on 28th May 2009. Two of these grants are to be administered by La Trobe University.

Dr Amaryll Perlesz of the Bouverie Centre will oversee a 5-year project titled Work, Love and Play: Understanding resilience in same-sex parented families involving Professor Margot Schofield from School of Public Health and Professor Marian Pitt from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) within the University and six external partner organisations across three states. The $361,000 grant comes with around $150,000 in partner funding. This research will provide information about how same-sex parented families experience access to health and community services in Australia and New Zealand and inform policy development to reduce discrimination. The research will also increase knowledge about the impact of limited social or community support on the health and wellbeing of families.
Professor Chris Bigby’s project Self Advocacy and Inclusion: What Can be Learned from Speaking Up will continue her research with people with intellectual disabilities and explore links between self-advocacy and national policy priorities for social inclusion. This project also tests the benefit of inclusive research, placing Australia at the forefront of innovative research approaches. Professor Bigby’s co-investigator is Dr Paul Ramcharan (RMIT).

Successful collaboration between Faculty of Health Science researchers and other institutions was also evident in the grants awarded.

Professor Jeni Warburton, John Richards Chair of Rural Aged Care Research, has achieved another success with a team based at Queensland University of Technology. Their project, Responding to the rural skills crisis: Modelling volunteer motivations and incentives to attract retired/semi‑retired professionals to volunteer in rural areas, contributes directly to the national health priority Promoting and Maintaining Good Health. This project places a high value on the skills of older Australians and will encourage them to remain productive into retirement by sharing these skills which will strengthen the social and economic fabric of rural communities.
Professor Marian Pitts, Director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), is a member of two other successful teams, both looking at the sexual health of young Indigenous Australians. One project, Sexual health and relationships in young Indigenous people will provide a national profile of risk behaviours, levels of knowledge and the types of health services young Indigenous people access for sexual health and blood borne viruses. The second project Culture, context and Risk: socio‑cultural influences on the sexual health of Indigenous young people involves a wide range of partners and seeks to explore sexuality from the perspective of Indigenous youth to develop interventions that are appropriate and sustainable.
Dr Kate Webster and Associate Professor Julian Feller of the Musculoskeletal Research Centre (MRC) are part of a team looking at the causes behind the failures of total knee replacements in a project titled Patient specific computational tools for evaluating functional performance of total knee replacements in vivo.

ARC Discovery Grant Success in the Faculty of Health Sciences - 2009

Professor Christine Bigby is leading a project titled ‘Realising an 'ordinary life' for people with intellectual disabilities: Developing a theoretical framework for group home outcomes’ funded by a $380,000 ARC Discovery grant. The research will support the translation of social policy into practice and the adoption of good management practices. The study aims to develop and test a theoretical framework to explain how different factors in group homes work together and can be exploited to maximise the potential of residents. The methodology builds on past studies but focuses particularly on the informal service culture, which has received little research attention. The theoretical framework will be generalisable to any group home and enable resources to be more carefully targeted to achieve optimal resident outcomes and better use of public money.

NHMRC successes in the Faculty of Health Sciences - Grants and Awards for 2009

Dr Lisa Amir, a Senior Research Fellow at Mother and Child Health Research, heads a project supported by $751,600 to determine the cause of ‘breast thrush’ in lactating women.

A qualified medical practitioner and lactation consultant who works in private practice and at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Dr Amir is a specialist in the role of Candida albicans in nipple and breast pain in lactating women that can lead to early cessation of breastfeeding if the condition is not appropriately treated.

Dr Bircan Erbas in the School of Public Health has been awarded $454,550 for research into the impact of outdoor aeroallergens in exacerbating asthma in children and adolescents. Her earlier research, funded through a Faculty grant, has shown that grass pollen has an increasing effect on asthma hospital admissions. Dr Erbas is now studying the problem using new data from Melbourne and other Australian cities and plans to develop models to accurately forecast next day pollen counts.