Winners - Best Oral and Poster Presentations at the 6th Biennial Conference

29/01/2010 12:22:24 PM

Congratulations to our two winners – Nikki Clelland from the Menzies School of Health Research who won the prize for best poster presentation and Miranda Crumpston, winner of the best oral presentation.

As in previous years prizes were awarded to the best oral and poster presentations by new and emerging researchers at the conference.   The prizes were sponsored by the Queensland University of Technology, and we were very lucky to have Professor Michele Clark, Acting Assistant Dean (Research),
Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology presenting the prizes.

Presentations reporting the results of a research study completed by the applicant(s) were judged on presentation, content, contribution to the project by the emerging researcher and originality. For the purpose of the competition an Emerging Researcher was defined as an individual who is either currently enrolled in post-graduate study or has completed their most recent post-graduate degree within the past 5 years.

The standard of presentations was so high this year that four highly commended awards were also made to Nihaya Al-sheyab for her poster presentation and to Annie McClusky, Deborah Askew and Braden Te Ao for their oral presentations.

Winner – Best Oral Presentation – Miranda Crumpston, Cochrane Centre, Monash University

Miranda holds Masters in Public Health from the University of Queensland. Her early career was in health policy, working with the Australian Department of Health and Ageing and as a parliamentary adviser. She began working with the Cochrane Collaboration in 2004 in Canada, coordinating training in systematic review methods for the Canadian Cochrane Centre, and acting as Managing Editor for the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group in 2007. Miranda currently works with the Australasian Cochrane Centre at Monash University, providing training in systematic review methods and collaborating in a number of projects around knowledge translation of research into policy.

The study presented by Miranda at the HSRAANZ conference was a qualitative survey of Australian health policy makers from State and Territory Departments of Health. The survey was conducted on behalf of the NHMRC and the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group, and set out to engage policy makers in discussion around priority questions for research synthesis. The survey identified a range of published Cochrane systematic reviews addressing priority questions around health system organisation and practice improvement. Also identified were a number of questions for which systematic reviews are needed, or for which further primary research is needed.

Abstract - Cumpston.pdf 

Winner – Best Poster – Nikki Clelland, Menzies School of Health Research

Nikki Clelland (BSc; MPH) is a PhD student based at Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Northern Territory. In 2008, Nikki was awarded a NHMRC Postgraduate Training Scholarship for Indigenous Australian Health Research to investigate the feasibility of structured quality improvement approaches for health promotion in Indigenous Primary Health Care settings. She is also a CIPHER (Capacity Building in Indigenous Policy-relevant Health Research) Post Graduate Research Scholar and Chief Investigator on a 3 year NHMRC research project trialing a continuous quality improvement intervention for health promotion in Indigenous communities.

Nikki has lived and worked in Darwin for several years. Prior to commencing her PhD, Nikki was employed by the NT Department of Health and Community Services for six years, where she was responsible for developing Territory wide policies and initiatives for mental health promotion including the Northern Territory Framework for Suicide Prevention and leading the development of strategic approaches to improve health promotion practice across the NT. She has also spent time as a Ministerial Advisor for the Northern Territory Health Minister and has lived and worked in North Queensland where she developed and implemented a broad range of Indigenous and non-Indigenous health promotion initiatives. Nikki loves to run, especially after her two daughters, Bella 4.5yrs and Charlie 22 months. She hopes to one day achieve her life long ambition of running a marathon! 

Abstract - Clelland.pdf

Highly Commended – Best Oral Presentation - Annie McCluskey, The University of Sydney, Rehabilitation Centre Sydney & National Stroke Foundation

Annie McCluskey was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ at the HSRAANZ conference for a paper titled ‘Implementing evidence: A case study in community stroke rehabilitation’. Annie is an occupational therapist and a health services researcher. She holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Sydney which is co-funded by the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney and National Stroke Foundation.

Annie presented a study which had been completed as part of her NHMRC-NICS-HCF Foundation fellowship (2007-2009). The fellowship program, now known as TRIP (Translating Research into Practice), aims to build translational research skills. The aim of Annie’s pre-post study was to change stroke rehabilitation practice so that more people with stroke received evidence-based treatment. Working with 5 community teams in Sydney, and a cycle of audit and feedback, Annie identified barriers to implementing evidence, and ran a training workshop to target these barriers. Barriers included poor knowledge of the evidence, concern about escorting people in the community, and absence of systems to remind team members to deliver the intervention. After 12 months, 32% of people with stroke received multiple outdoor journey sessions consistent with the evidence, compared to 17% of people at baseline (a 15% change). More people with stroke reported getting out and about as often as they wanted compared to baseline. The knowledge translation program is now being tested across Sydney as part of a cluster randomised trial, involving 20 teams.

Abstract - McClusky.pdf

Highly Commended – Best Oral Presentation Braden Te Ao, University of Auckland, School of Population Health 

Having just completed a Masters in Public Health in the area of Health Service Research at the University of Auckland, Braden is currently working for CHSRP on a number of projects relating to cost and access to services post stroke.

His research for the ERGO prize was called “Is it cost effective to introduce stroke units in Auckland hospitals?” and integrates cost effectiveness analysis to compare costs and outcomes for those treated on a Stroke Unit with those treated on a General Ward. It also examined the sensitivity of the results to changes in waiting times for discharge.

Abtract - Te Ao.pdf

Highly Commended – Best Oral Presentation – Deborah Askew, Discipline of General Practice, University of Queensland

I am a senior research fellow in the Discipline of General Practice at The University of Queensland. My research interests include the development and evaluation of new models of primary health care, the development of a research culture in general practice and primary care, development of patient self-efficacy through chronic disease self-management education and training, and consumer attitudes to health services. For the conference, I presented a pilot diabetic retinopathy screening project in general practice. Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in adults in Australia, but is almost completely preventable if people have appropriate screening and timely treatment. We found that general practice based diabetic retinopathy screening was feasible and acceptable to patients and GPs.

Abstract - Askew.pdf   

 Nihaya has a PhD in Nursing having graduated from UTS, Australia in August 2009. She currently holds the position of Assistant professor in Child health Nursing. Jordan University of Science and Technology.

Nihaya explains “My thesis was about adapting and testing the effectiveness of an English-based, peer-led, school based asthma education program on important health outcomes among adolescents with asthma attending high schools in Jordan. The program, originally developed and tested in Australia, called the Adolescent Asthma Action program. In this program trained adolescent peers teach slightly younger students about asthma and smoking in a creative way using the high influence of peers. Those students then spread important asthma and smoking messages to the whole school community. Implementation of the adapted program led to significant improvements in quality of life and self-efficacy to resist smoking among adolescents with asthma in Jordanian schools.”

Abstract - Al-sheyab.pdf