FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

We’re now a quarter of the way through 2007, a year that has started extremely well for SPH. Enrolment numbers are our highest ever -- we have well over 600 course enrolments for first semester. This milestone is an outstanding achievement and testament to all of your hard work over the last year or so in refining and improving our courses and programs. Congratulations!

Research achievements for the year are also very impressive, with School staff submitting 22 grant applications. I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone in the School who has been involved in the submission of these NH&MRC and ARC grant or fellowship applications.  I realise that the earlier deadlines announced by NH&MRC have created enormous pressure on those of you who planned to submit grant applications, particularly in view of teaching preparations for first Semester.  This has been an excellent team effort also involving the administrative support staff of the School and I do hope that you are rewarded with good news later in the year!  Competitive grant applications are a key component of academic life and it is very pleasing to see such a School response.

During the course of this year, the School will set in place several new initiatives to further support staff with the development of their grant applications for 2008, including employing a Research Development Coordinator, one of whose tasks will be to run the School Grant Development Scheme this year.
 
I was also very pleased to see the excellent turnout at the School’s retreat at Ballymore on 2nd March. I hope you’ll agree with me that the day was a productive one that yielded valuable insights into the School’s strengths, challenges and opportunities. I will be working to put into place some of the very useful suggestions made on the day. Your contributions will help ensure the School’s preparations for the Review are of the highest standard. I look forward to updating you on progress in the next newsletter.

SPH Nutrition courses head to the Top End
In an innovative arrangement, SPH is ‘leasing out’ its undergraduate nutrition courses and course materials to Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory.

The arrangement will see SPH update the nutrition courses and make them suitable for delivery in block mode. Professor Richard Taylor said: “The School recognises that provision of these courses to Bachelor will assist them in providing Indigenous tertiary education in nutrition.”

“It will also assist SPH in providing the impetus and resources for improved documentation and quality of our undergraduate nutrition courses.”

QADREC Review
QADREC is currently preparing a submission for its review on March 26th. The review panel will be Alan Lopez, Wayne Hall, Dr Kevin Lambkin and Robert Kemp from QH and Prof Margaret Hamilton (see below for her bio).
Professor Margaret Hamilton
Member of the Prime Minister's National Council on Drugs, member of the National Expert Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs, Deputy Chair on the National Expert Advisory Committee on Alcohol, Chair of the Drug Advisory Committee - Lord Mayors, Chair of the Royal Women's Hospital Ethics Committee

Teaching and Learning Update
by Greg Fowler
Flexible learning is part of The University of Queensland's overall policy to deliver an enhanced, student-centred approach to learning by applying the most effective, flexible and appropriate teaching and learning modes and technologies. From this year we are delivering not some, but all our courses through the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS). And while we have only just begun the eLearning process, already we are finding new and interesting ways to provide information and interact with students, other than with traditional lectures and tutorials. This is surely a bonus for all external students struggling for an equitable learning experience when they can’t attend a campus, sorry a location.

Standardising Blackboard sites for all SPH courses
At its February 2007 meeting the Teaching and Learning Committee confirmed the requirements of a Blackboard site for all SPH courses from 2007 in both internal and external delivery modes, with a standard interface and structure, as an essential teaching tool.  This standard interface includes our SPH banner and the main menu and structure of the UQ required Electronic Course Profiles (ECP). Now all our SPH Blackboard sites are created and designed like this ready for course coordinators’ creative input. Student will have a familiar online interface for every course in which they enrol.

Online submission of assignments
The Teaching and Learning Committee also resolved to require all student assignments for postgraduate courses to be submitted via the Assessment section of course Blackboard sites. This mandatory online submission provides both students and staff with the security of knowing that assignments are submitted to one location for all courses and that assignments are time and date stamped.  Online submission in undergraduate courses is expected to be implemented in semester 2.

Instructions to students on assignment submission process are included in the ECPs and each of our Blackboard sites.  Guidance for staff on how to retrieve assignments or mark assignments online using tracked changes is available from the school’s Educational Designer, Valerie Springett, room 235, ext. 55418.

If you want further training on any aspects of Blackboard or ECP, please email me and I can arrange for onsite single or group training to cover most issues.

More T&L news in the next issue including a call for staff input on a reward system for good practice in teaching as per the Staff Retreat

Publication highlights
Lancet paper on Thailand’s child mortality levels
A paper authored by SPH’s Mollie Hogan, Steve Lim, Alan Lopez and Theo Vos – in collaboration with researchers in Thailand and from Harvard University – appeared in the March 10 edition of The Lancet. The paper examined whether Thailand’s progress in reducing the under-five mortality rate has been accompanied by a widening or closing of the child mortality gap between the richest and poorest populations. The authors found good news – average household economic status and average child mortality improved and inequalities in child mortality declined between the rich and poor.

Mollie Hogan comments: “These findings draw attention to the feasibility of incorporating equity measurement into routine data collection. Understanding the factors that led to Thailand’s success could help inform countries struggling to meet the fourth Millennium Development goal and reduce inequality. The paper was the result of a positive, well-developed collaboration between local and international researchers conducted under the Setting Priorities using Information on Cost-Effectiveness project (SPICE) in Thailand.”

Mollie Hogan

Link between cannabis and depressed adults
Young people who start using cannabis before the age of 15 risk depression and anxiety in early adulthood, according to a new paper published by several SPH researchers in the March issue of Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The paper found that  even after accounting for other factors, such as family background, those who smoked marijuana in their early teens and used the drug frequently at age 21, were more likely to suffer anxiety and depression (AD).

Lead author, Dr Reza Hayatbakhsh, said the findings are significant because they support the hypothesis that use of cannabis increases the risk of anxiety and depression, not that people with these problems use cannabis in an attempt to relieve their symptoms.

“We were also able to investigate how risk of depression among young adults is linked to both frequency of cannabis use and the age the subjects started using cannabis,” said Dr Hayatbakhsh.

Frequent cannabis use is associated with increased AD in young adults independently of whether the person also uses other illicit drugs and this risk is substantially greater for those who began such use before 15 years.

The study is part of the long-running Mater-University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) that has followed 3,239 Australian young adults from birth to age 21, when the data for this project was obtained.

Dr Hayatbakhsh worked on the paper with other SPH staff Professors Jake Najman and Konrad Jamrozik and Drs Abdullah al Mamun and Rosa Alati, as well as the Mater Hospital’s Dr William Bor.

Reza Hayatbakhsh

Only two public health scholarships awarded in 2007. The scholarship provides a stipend and annual travel and departmental allowances.

The project is focused on older adults and is aimed at increasing their physical activity time and reducing their sedentary time. The intervention will be delivered through the internet and two websites will be used. The control group will have access to a standard information only website. The intervention group will have access to a website that will provide tailored feedback about the individual’s level of physical activity and sedentary behaviour.

Paul Gardiner

Fiji field trip
A group of MPH students from the Division of International & Indigenous are currently doing a group research project on HIV/AIDS in Fiji. The research is qualitative and uses the techniques of medical anthropology (eg participant-observation, focus groups and a variety of interview styles) to elicit data on cultural beliefs about illness and healing generally, as well as local understandings of HIV/AIDS.

The group, supervised by Megan Jennaway, held a full-day multiple focus group discussion session which included a kava ceremony where SPH was thanked for its participation in the village and the SPH group was formally welcomed in the community. The students will return to SPH in April.

 
T
L-R: Toleafoa T.K Naseri (MPH student), “Ravea” (participant), Angelia Rachma Dewi (MPH student), Maria de Natividade Quive (MPH student), Amanda Higi (MPH student), Litiana Kuridrani (PhD student)

Following a hospital internship in Nanning, Guanxi, PRC, Peter returned to private practice in Australia. He concurrently volunteered acupuncture services for the “Wastelands Detox Programme’, an acute and maintenance heroin detoxification programme established by QuIVaa. Peter’s interest in contributing to complementary and alternative medicine research led Peter to undertake the MPH at the School of Population Health, culminating in his research dissertation “Valerian versus Placebo Single Patient Trials for the Management of Insomnia in General Practice: Pilot Experience”.

He has worked, and gained invaluable experience, in various research centres at SPH including the Centre for General Practice, the Centre for Health Promotion and Cancer Prevention Research and the Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre. Peter moved to Sydney in 2003 where he managed a herbal medicine and drug interaction project at the Herbal Medicines Research and Education Centre, University of Sydney, and later worked within the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research, University of Western Sydney.

Peter returned to UQ to join the Queensland Evaluation Group in July 2006 and enjoys the broadening of his skills within a health policy and regulatory environment. He was recently awarded a NHMRC public health scholarship to complete his PhD on the pharmacoepidemiology of complementary and alternative medicines.

His private interests include enjoying learning about fatherhood from his 3 year old daughter,Maya, and trying (not nearly hard enough) to find the time and motivation to keep fit.

 Satyamurthy Anuradha (Anu)
Program director, Clinical Epidemiology

Anu

Anu joined the School in 2007 as Lecturer in the Clinical Epidemiology Program. She comes from that part of the world where traditionally there are no surnames and so would like to be called Anu.

Anu graduated in Medicine from Madras (Chennai) in South India and obtained her FRCS (Ophth) from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. She worked as an Ophthalmologist with public health interest for eleven years in Wales, UK. Her recent project that involved testing the visual acuity of British drivers in the UK to raise awareness gained national significance and she is keen to pursue this in Queensland too. She completed her Masters in Public Health from Cardiff University in 2006.

Anu is married with two boys and works tirelessly from ‘son’ rise to ‘son’ set. She loves cricket and is a staunch Pom supporter when the Aussies play the English.

Petra Lahmann
Senior lecturer, Nutrition
Dr Petra Lahmann has commenced as Senior Lecturer in Nutritional Epidemiology, filling the joint position with Qld Health that was previously held by Terry Coyne. 

Petra is a nutritional epidemiologist with expertise in obesity research, cancer epidemiology and early origin research.  She has extensive experience in dietary and anthropometric assessment, analysis of large data sets, and development of analytical strategies, including involvement in European-wide working groups.

Petra comes from Germany and obtained her first graduate degree in nutrition sciences and home economics from the University of Kiel (Germany), followed by a one year Fulbright scholarship at Cornell University (USA) studying in the International Nutrition Program. She obtained her PhD in nutritional sciences from the Pennsylvania State University during a second stay in the US a few years later. For her recent research work she has been mainly involved with the EPIC study at different locations in Scandinavia and Germany, and the 1946 British Birth Cohort (MRC NSHD) while based in Cambridge/UK before her new appointment at UQ.

Petra likes the Southern hemisphere which among other aspects attracted her to take on an academic position in Australia and is looking forward to coming to know the "Queensland way of life".

Petra’s office is room 427 in the Public Health Building.

Megan Williams
Associate lecturer, Indigenous Health Unit
Being mixed-up makes perfect sense for Megan…

Megan’s father’s family are descendents of the Wiradjuri people of Mudgee in central New South Wales. Her mother’s family include a feminist from the 40s and a British Brigadier who helped establish UNICEF in Australia. But in the family mix there is also the Stolen Generation, death, drugs and rock ‘n roll...

This mixed background extends to Megan’s work life, which has been a combination of research, hands-on health promotion and capacity building among service providers in the area of drug use and hepatitis C education – preferably all at the same time!

Megan has worked in the School of Population Health for several years part-time, and is touted to be the person who has had the most farewell morning teas.

But hopefully no more for a while – Megan is thrilled to be in her new position, and hopes to keep mixing it up with a research higher degree about Indigenous prison issues, and an interest in Indigenous health service access, the mainstreaming debate and chronic illness care.

Lots more mixed-up things to tell… do visit for a chat and a good coffee sometime.

Preetha Thomas
Nutrition
Preeta has a Master of Human Nutrition degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as a Master of Nutrition from Coimbatore, India. She has worked at University College London as part of the nutrition team of the Whitehall II study (large public health study among civil servants in the UK) before taking time off work to have twins!  

Preeta is keen to pursue research into changing dietary patterns of immigrants in Brisbane. She has lived in Brisbane for two years and loves the seafood, wine and, like most people from the subcontinent, is a cricket fan.

Lorian Hayes
Indigenous Health
Lorian joined the school in 2007 as an Associate Lecturer with the Indigenous Health Program.  Lorian is from the bidjerra nad Wadja Wadja peoples of Central and Central Western Queensland.  She has four adult daughters and 13 grandchildren who keep her extremely busy with fishing, football and camping.

Lorian graaduated with a Bachelor of Applied Health Science (IPHC) Hons from UQ, a masters of applied epidemiology from Australian National University and is currently enrolled in the PhD program with UQ.

Lorian has extensive research experience in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of Queensland and has been involved/working for the past 37 years with Indigenous communities, her area of expertise is Alcohol and Pregnancy and consequences of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, she is recognised for her work internationally and is a recipient from the Australian Labour Party for her committment to addressing FASD in the Indigenous communities.

Florence Kim
Receptionist
Florence began in February as the School’s Receptionist and clerical officer and looks after PhD student inquiries as well as general admin duties.

Florence has a Bachelor degree in graphic design as well as a Masters degree in multimedia. She has worked abroad as a marketing designer and in the hotel industry. Florence can be found at Reception on level 2 of the Public Health Building.

The Northern Territory lost one of its pillars of public health practice on December 11 2006 when Dr Jan Bullen died as a result of a car crash. Jan was the sole medical officer and Head of the Centre for Disease Control in Katherine.

When you do that job, you do everything and you do it hands on. You do the TB and STI clinics and their public health programs. You do the health promotion and school education and the training for the community health staff. You follow up the contact tracing for measles and meningococcal disease on Sundays and oversee the vaccination programs. You work with the hospital, the town GPs and remote community health services. Mainstream health and Indigenous Health. You are the boss and mentor for the CDC staff, hire and fire, do the budget, and write the funding submissions and ministerials. And when the Katherine river floods the town (including your place), you are “on” 24/7 as the health part of the emergency response team. Jan had a lot of help and loyalty from her team, Maria Chandler, Margaret Cooper, Judy Barrit and many others through the years who were fantastic colleagues and friends. But Jan was their leader and she was “it” in Katherine. She exemplified what a good public health physician can achieve.

Jan Bullen did all this for 15 years and still found the time to be the secretary of the Faculty Regional Committee. I found it exhausting just thinking about all that she did sometimes. She was always cheerful, always helpful, and (almost) always willing to put up her hand to do another job. I say “almost” because she was nobody’s fool either. She had commitment to her individual patients and commitment to public health. She had to provide leadership and direction and, with so many different things to deal with, she had to be across a lot of the literature and also know how to get help and take advice which she always did with good grace.  In many ways she epitomized the qualities of a specialist medical practitioner.

Jan was also a devoted mother to three daughters, Suzanne, Sam and Shana and wife to Kenny. Jan was a generalist public health physician and a very good one. I can’t begin to say how much she will be missed.

Next newsletter
The next newsletter will be published in June. Please send your news, stories and photos to Amy Orlandi a.orlandi@uq.edu.au.