Public health research

Public health related research is carried out in a number of research clusters, within the Health and Wellbeing Research Priority Area:

1. Promoting Social Justice and Equity

There are six major developed programs of research within the group.  These are listed below together with the main people involved. Work in these programme areas is necessarily interconnected.  Underlying the group’s work in all these areas is an active concern with: the development of mixed methodologies; the application of systems thinking; multidisciplinary approaches; systematic approaches to reviewing and synthesising the research literature, and with issues of knowledge transfer and practice development.  The disciplines represented within the group include: public health, health promotion, health sciences, social work, occupational science and therapy, sociology, anthropology and disability studies.

Enquiries to:
Cluster Director: Professor Ann Taket
Cluster Research Fellow: Sarah Barter-Godfrey

The cluster’s research programs

This programme builds on a wide variety of different studies that share a focus on the question of how best to respond, in health and human service terms, to social diversity, in ways that actively support improving the health of marginalised/excluded/disadvantaged groups, and thereby contribute to the reduction of health inequalities.  Areas addressed by this programme include: diverse cultures and ethnicities (D’Cruz, Pallota-Chiarolli, Pease, Taket); refugees (Pease); migrants (Pease); substance (ab)users (Crisp); people with chronic illness (Millen); older workers (Webb); diverse sexualities (Pallota-Chiarolli, Taket); carers (Savage) ; children from disadvantaged circumstances (Stagnitti) and children who have experienced trauma or who have a diagnosis (Stagnitti).

2. Gender, families and reproductive health (Fiona Andrews, Sarah Barter-Godfrey, Petra Bueskens, Kay Cook, Liz Eckermann, Melissa Graham, Liz Hoban, Karen Lane, Helen Larkin, Jan Moore, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Bob Pease, Genevieve Pepin, Sally Savage, Julia Shelley, Karen Stagnitti, Kim Toffoletti, Mardie Townsend)
The second, and very large programme area comprises three overlapping strands of research in relation to:
gender issues (Cook, Eckermann, Hoban, Pallota-Chiarolli, Pease, Toffoletti)
families (Andrews, Bound, Larkin, Moore, Savage, Stagnitti, Townsend) and
reproductive health (Barter-Godfrey, Bueskens, Eckermann, Graham, Lane, Shelley). 

3. Environments and communities (Sarah Barter-Godfrey, Neil Burdess, Evelyne de Leeuw, Melissa Graham, Claire Henderson-Wilson, Anna Macgarvey, Christine Morley, Jenny-Lynn Potter, Mardie Townsend, Sally Savage)
Current research here includes:
the human health benefits of interaction with nature; urban and rural contexts for health and wellbeing; social and health impact assessment; and housing and homelessness (Townsend and her group, including Leslie, and Henderson-Wilson). 
health policy development and public health development with particular reference to healthy cities (de Leeuw)
The needs and challenges of rural communities (Burdess, Macgarvey, Townsend, Graham, Savage)
The human health impact of pets and companion animals (Morley, Townsend)
Research into health impact assessment, on the application of HIA to policies, strategies, projects and programs that are likely to have an impact on health, wellbeing and inequalities (Potter, in collaboration with Mary Mahoney, Senior Academic Associate within the School, who is currently based at the University of the West of England in the UK)

4. Social exclusion (Kay Cook, Beth Crisp, Liz Hoban, Helen Larkin, Anna Macgarvey, Neville Millen, Janet Owens, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Bob Pease, Sally Savage, Ann Taket, Janine Webb)
Current research here includes:
understanding the complex interactions between social exclusion and health, (Crisp, Hoban, Larkin, Millen, Owens, Pallotta-Chiarolli, Pepin, Savage, Taket)
bringing together different theoretical perspectives to better understand the processes by which groups and individuals come to understand, or experience themselves, as marginalized or excluded, and the factors that shape these processes (Cook, Crisp, Macgarvey, Pallotta-Chiarolli, Pease, Taket, Webb).

5. Violence and abuse: prevention and intervention (Heather D’Cruz, Liz Eckermann, Peter Gillingham, Melissa Graham, Liz Hoban, Christine Morley, Bob Pease, Ann Taket,)
Major current focuses of work here are on:
improving the service response to those who experience domestic abuse, both adults (Hoban, Eckermann, Morley, Pease, Taket) and children (D’Cruz, Gillingham, Graham, Morley);
improving  the service response for those who perpetrate abuse (Pease, Taket);
prevention and intervention in violence and abuse generally (Hoban, Eckermann, Morley, Pease, Taket)

6. Professional and workplace development, practice and education (Beth Crisp, Michelle Courtney, Heather D’Cruz, Peter Gillingham, Melissa Graham, Jane Maidment, Jan Moore, Christine Morley, Bob Pease, Genevieve Pepin, Karen Stagnitti, Ann Taket)
Current research here includes:
application of postmodern critical theories to progressive social work practice (Morley, Pease) and profeminist approaches to working with men in the human services (Pease);
Research on the development of professional practice (Courtney, Crisp, D’Cruz, Taket);
Fieldwork education in social work (Maidment)
Knowledge resources used in social work (Crisp)
Education in public health and health promotion (Graham, Taket)