Healthy interventions

Associate Professor Cathy Turner
Associate Professor Cathy Turner

Two UQ researchers will be spending three months in the US adding a new to their studies after winning prestigious Fulbright scholarships for 2006.

Two researchers focused on making a difference in two vital aspects of health care will advance their studies in the US after winning 2006 Fulbright scholarships.  UQ Associate Professors Cathy Turner and David Whiteman won two of three Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards presented nationally, each worth $15,000.

Dr Turner, Coordinator of Research and Higher Degrees in the UQ School of Nursing, leaves in November for Harvard University in Boston where she will widen her knowledge of conducting longitudinal health studies.

Harvard medical researchers started the Nurses Health Study in 1976 and have since collected information from more than 238,000 nurses. It is acclaimed as one of the most important studies on the health of women.  Dr Turner is leading the Nurses and Midwives e-cohort project, the first longitudinal study to look into the work and health of those involved in these crucial health professions.  “There are about 270,000 nurses and midwives in Australia and yet we have little data about the factors affecting their work and health in the face of severe workforce shortages,” she said.  “This study will inform education and workforce policy for the nursing and midwifery professions and, in addition, will have the capacity to examine a range of population health outcomes.”

Dr Turner said the study also hoped to look at the issues associated with the short supply of nurses, not only in Australia but also in New Zealand where similar workforce problems exist.

Dr Whiteman is a Senior Research Fellow with the Cancer and Population Studies Group at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.  He is also a UQ graduate and Adjunct Associate Professor with UQ’s School of Population Health.  He studies the causes and controls of human cancers, particularly cancer of the oesophagus and melanomas, the most deadly form of skin cancer.

He left in July for Seattle to collaborate with global cancer experts at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, working to better understand the causes of cancer of the oesophagus.  While in the US, he will test a theory that reflux and obesity triggered obesity-related proteins, which in turn increased the likelihood of developing cancer of the oesophagus.

“As we get heavier and fatter, our bodies pump out more hormones that might be putting us at more risk of cancer of the oesophagus and other cancers as well,” Dr Whiteman said.

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