Public Priorities

Whether developing more reliable ways to assess global health, or investigating the beliefs and knowledge of their own health held by Australians, public health research is a major priority at UQ.

Mortality  Measure

Research by an international health team, including a University academic, shows the rate of decline of global child mortality has not improved from three decades ago. In an article published in The Lancet, UQ School of Population Health’s Professor Alan Lopez analysed current and past data to create a more accurate child mortality forecast to 2015. The research, funded by the Government of Norway and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is part of a push to assess whether the global community can realistically achieve its stated Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce child mortality of under-fives by two thirds between 1990 and 2015.

The eight Millennium Development Goals were agreed by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 with the co-operation of almost 190 countries. The significance of the MDGs – which also include goals to halve extreme poverty, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide universal primary education – lies in their ability to galvanise global eff orts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest people.

“All of the world’s countries and leading development institutions have agreed to join forces to meet these goals by 2015,” Professor Lopez said. He said child mortality was an important measure of health and development. ”In some countries, one child in 11 dies before his or her fifth birthday and on a global level, nearly 10 million young children die each year, mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria,” Professor Lopez said.

Professor Lopez’s paper analysed information from 172 countries regarding data on child mortality between birth and age five. He said the paper’s significance lay in its comprehensive measurement of child mortality. As performance related disbursement by global health initiatives gains momentum, robust measurement of under-five mortality will take on ever greater importance for development assistance.

“This shows us where we can learn from successes and, in other countries, identify where extra eff orts are needed,” he said.

A team of high-profile international academics put the research together, including Professor Lopez and the University of Washington’s Professor Christopher Murray. Professors Lopez and Murray have worked together on a number of high-profile projects with important implications for global public health. In 1996, they published the seminal Global Burden of Disease Study, which revolutionised health priority setting by providing the first ever comprehensive report of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors.

Story author: Vanessa Mannix Coppard

Health  Illiteracy
The Healthy Communities Research Centre at UQ Ipswich is calling for a national focus on “health literacy” following the release of findings which reveal most Australians don’t have the basic knowledge to keep themselves healthy. The recently released findings are based on the 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Healthy Communities Research Centre Director, Professor Robert Bush, said for the first time, the survey had included questions on health literacy alongside the usual measures of prose and document literacy and numeracy skills. “This research has revealed nine million Australians – or 60 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 74 years – don’t have the basic knowledge and skills to understand and use information about their own health,” Professor Bush said.

“The effectiveness of medical treatments assumes patient competence for carrying out instructions. The information from this survey should send alarm bells ringing.”

Based on the survey information, the Healthy Communities Research Centre estimates more than 500,000 Queenslanders, between the ages of 15 and 74, would report their health as less than “good”. Of these, more than 350,000 people would not have basic health knowledge and skills to support their own health. The Healthy Communities Research Centre was launched in 2007 through a partnership between UQ’s Faculty of Health Sciences and the Ipswich Hospital Foundation.

Story author: Sarah Schindler 
 

HITnet received the Queensland Government Industry Prize at the International Conference for Virtual Systems and Multimedia late last year.  Photo: courtesy National HITnet Development Program

The University is leading the way in tackling the Indigenous health crisis through the use of information technology. The National HITnet (Health Interactive Technology network) Development Program, led by UQ in Cairns, is addressing the gap in health status and the “digital divide” between Indigenous and other Australians.

Program Director, Helen Travers, of UQ’s School of Medicine, recently presented a HITnet paper at the 13th International Conference for Virtual Systems and Multimedia in Brisbane, 2007. Dedicated to “bridging the information gap”, HITnet promotes health and wellbeing to disadvantaged populations through creating and sharing new media information. This is achieved through the implementation of touch screen kiosks delivering multimedia health promotion material on topics including alcohol, sexual health, mental health, diabetes and smoking.

The material requires minimal formal literacy and information is conveyed through animated stories, interactive games, narrative learning modules and photo stories, making the kiosks a popular source of entertainment as well as a health promotion tool. The kiosks can be accessed at health facilities located within Indigenous communities. HITnet plans to install 26 kiosks in Queensland and Western Australia and to expand the program to the Northern Territory by the end of 2008.

Story author: Penny Robinson

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