FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

The second half of 2007 promises to be busy, dominated by September’s School Review. This is an excellent opportunity for the School, especially in light of our fast growth, and I look forward to discussing with you the review’s recommendations and their implications for the School’s future plans.

Thank you for all your hard work so far this year and enjoy your mid-semester break.

SPH bids for global WHO Health Metrics Network

After the bid was shortlisted, Professor Lopez and JTA’s Dr Jane Thomason met with WHO officials in Geneva in June – a decision is expected late July.

Professor Lopez said the School’s shortlisted bid shows that SPH’s technical expertise is recognised globally and that we have the ability to work with key partners in international health.

School Review update

On 30 August, the week prior to the review, another school forum will be held in the ES Meyers Lecture Theatre. I look forward to seeing you all there to discuss the Review, as well as other School news.

Farewell to Konrad Jamrozik

The School is sad to see the departure of Professor Konrad Jamrozik (Head, Division of Health Systems, Policy and Practice) as he leaves to take up the appointment of Head of School, School of Population Health and Clinical Practice at the University of Adelaide. During his time at SPH, Konrad has been a source of real intellectual leadership as he has guided his Division to great success. We are grateful to all that Konrad has done for the School and wish him all the best, not only in his new position, but as he and wife Lesley prepare for the arrival of twins in August! Professor Wayne Hall and Dr Fran Boyle share leadership of the Division until a permanent replacement is appointed.


Konrad Jamrozik

New Staff

Again lots of new staff are swelling the ranks at SPH! It’s great to see so many new faces around the place, bringing a fresh energy and international experience to the School. Below are our latest joiners:

Kurt Long

Dr Kurt Long recently joined us Senior Lecturer in International Nutritional. 

Kurt is a human population biologist with extensive experience working on issues of childhood health and nutrition in developing countries. He has been carrying out clinical trials in Mexico concerned with defining what immunological and physiological mechanisms underlie the impact micronutrient supplementation has on infectious disease morbidity and growth among children.  He is now developing projects concerned with how changing associations between micronutrient deficiencies, infectious diseases, and inflammatory markers relate to trends in nutrition and health in countries passing through the epidemiological transition.  These projects are especially concerned with the impact of nutrition on body composition among young children and the development of obesity in rural areas of Mexico.  This work will hopefully allow the development of new public health interventions that more effectively reduce childhood infectious disease morbidity while simultaneously identifying what factors may underlie the rapidly increasing rates of obesity found in countries like Mexico.

Kurt’s office is room 425 in the Public Health Building.

Lennert Veerman

Another Dutchman joining the School! Lennert has joined the Centre for Burden of Disease and Cost-Effectiveness as a Research Fellow. Lennert obtained his medical degree in Amsterdam and in subsequent years worked in the care for asylum seekers. Meanwhile, he specialised as a public health physician and took a few courses in medical anthropology. He then moved on to do an MPH and a PhD in Rotterdam. This September he’ll fly back to the Netherlands to defend his thesis. (The Dutch make more of a show of the graduation than the Australians.) To keep in touch with public health practice he also took night and weekend shifts as a first line forensic doctor, which involved looking after the health of police detainees and into the causes of death of corpses.

Lennert’s expertise is in predictive modelling. This is largely thanks to Jan Barendregt who tutored him in Rotterdam. Jan also advertised the great Australian climate. Lennert decided to come to Brisbane to add an international health perspective to his work. And for the climate, though at the time of writing it seems that some of the rain has caught up.

He brings along his spouse, and three sons who were too young to have a say in whether or not to move to the other side of the world. True to his background, he daily defies Brisbane traffic by bike and seems to be the only one who uses the hospital’s swimming pool for personnel.

Deirdre McLaughlin

Dr Deirdre McLaughlin has been appointed Research Fellow for the NHMRC-ARC funded project, Men, Women and Ageing: Predictors of Ageing Well in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health and the Perth Health in Men Study.

In a prior life, Deirdre was a legal Management Accountant, but when she realised that she was spending more time managing the clients rather than their money, she decided to toss away her green pen and return to university to study psychology.

Since then, Deirdre has focused on gaining a better understanding of the psychological aspects of ageing, and has researched in this field since 2000, working with the Australasian Centre on Ageing on a variety of projects and completing a PhD on the psychosocial aspects of ageing with epilepsy.

Deirdre has one son, Antony, who is currently in 2nd year medicine at UQ. She lives in a rural area and has been breeding and showing cattle for the past ten years, although this year she’ll just be an observer at the Ekka, having sold her animals in order to move closer to Brisbane.

Katrien is a physical educator with a doctorate from the University of Ghent in Belgium. Her research is predominantly on associations of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, physical fitness and distress with metabolic syndrome risk in adults. She is joining the Cancer Prevention Research Centre as a visiting research fellow from June to September 2007. During that time she is closely collaborating with the International Diabetes Institute and works predominantly on the Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle (AusDiab) database.

From November 2007 on, she will be working as a Career Development Fellow at the Medical Research Council, Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, UK, for 3 years. Her main research focus in Cambridge will be on non-genetic determinants of infant growth.

Katrien likes photography, exploring different cultures and being physically active.

Janneke Berecki

Janneke Berecki started in April 2007 as a Research Fellow for the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. Janneke has just graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Before that she completed a PhD in physiology sponsored by Space Research Organisation Netherlands and looking at blood pressure regulation and orthostatic tolerance in astronauts and cosmonauts after space flight. With a background in medicine and physiology she is now eager to start in the field of epidemiology.

Zoe Dawkins
Zoë joined the School in February to work on the Evidence for Health Policy in Vietnam project, funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. Zoë is an applied anthropologist, with a background in the NGO/international development sector.

Zoë has research and work experience in Vietnam, where she conducted a social impact assessment of internationally funded aid projects, using a narrative evaluation technique. She also has international experience in China, Fiji, India, and Papua New Guinea, and speaks Chinese Mandarin and (a little bit of) Vietnamese.

This is Zoë’s first academic appointment, and she is looking forward to pursuing her research interests in the area of Arts and Culture in Development with indigenous communities. Zoë’s appointment to the School is also functioning as an institutional collaboration with JTA International, where she is employed on a part-time basis as the Project Design and Evaluation Associate.

Andrew Vallely


Andrew Vallely is Senior Lecturer in Tropical & Infectious Diseases at the School of Population Health, University of Queensland. Andrew joined SPH in March 2007 after working in HIV care and prevention in East Africa for over 6 years. He has also been a District Medical Officer in Papua New Guinea (1995-8) and has coordinated participatory health needs assessment among refugee communities in London (1998-9).

Andrew coordinated the Microbicides Development Programme (MDP) feasibility study and phase III vaginal microbicide trial in Mwanza, northern Tanzania from November 02 until March 07 and remains actively involved with the site as a Co-Investigator. He is also a Co-Principal Investigator on a nested qualitative study that is exploring barriers to antiretroviral access among women diagnosed as HIV positive at screening or during trial follow-up.

His current research interests are HIV prevention trials among transactional & commercial sex workers; the use of participatory action-orientated research in clinical trials among vulnerable study populations; and the impact of malaria on maternal and child health.
Andrew is coordinating the Infectious & Tropical Diseases Course (PUBH7101) and assisting Megan Jennaway to coordinate the Global perspectives on HIV and AIDS Course (PUBH7118) in second semester 2007.

Danielle Penn
Danielle Penn commenced as the Research Development Coordinator in the School of Population Health on 14th May 2007.  Previous to this appointment, she was employed in research and clinically based roles in the not for profit, university, public hospital and private pathology sectors in Brisbane and Sydney.  Danielle obtained a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences, Masters of Science and Masters of Public Health and retains an academic appointment at the University of New South Wales in the Centres for Primary Health Care and Equity.

Her experience is largely in health informatics, program evaluation and chronic disease management and has published in these areas.   She is also interested inequity and inequality in health, social justice and the environmental impacts of climate change.

Danielle has a creative passion and exhibits in a local gallery; showcasing pottery, woodwork using native Australian recycled and reclaimed timbers, blacksmithing, oil pastels and fibre crafts. 

Ashutosh Todkar
Ashutosh joined the Queensland Evaluation Group (QEG) as a Clinical Fellow in May. Ashutosh completed his MBBS from India’s Pune University in 1998 and also holds a Diploma in Health Administration from New Delhi, India and a Master of Public Health from the University of New South Wales. Back in his native I=India he taught Clinical Pharmacology to medical students while also doing some general practice in Pune. After completing his  MPH Ashutosh  coordinated a multi-centric intervention research project focusing on the sexual and reproductive health needs of married adolescent girls in rural India. He has keen research interests in Pharmacoepidemiology.  Ashutosh is married and the proud father of 15 month old daughter, Ananya.

Staff news

Heart Foundation Travel Report
by Genevieve Healy
A Heart Foundation Travel Grant was used to provide financial support to attend the 54th Annual American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) conference in New Orleans, USA from 30th May to 2nd June 2007 where I presented as part of a symposium, as well as an individual oral presentation. The presentations reported work from my PhD regarding the associations of sedentary time, and breaking up sedentary time, with components of the metabolic syndrome, including blood glucose. The key findings reported from the study were that total sedentary time, independent of moderate-to-vigorous intensity activity, was detrimentally associated with components of the metabolic syndrome, while the extent to which sedentary time was interrupted, independent of total sedentary time, was beneficially associated with components of the metabolic syndrome. The support from the National Heart Foundation was acknowledged in both presentations.

Both talks were well received, with several positive comments and feedback related to the research. The conference also enabled me to meet and network with several leading researchers in physical activity and cardiovascular disease and diabetes research. The abstracts from the conference are published in the latest supplement of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. I intend to publish the work presented at this conference in a leading international journal, where the support from the National Heart Foundation will be acknowledged.

Baby news! Congratulations Heidi and Andrew Page

Best wishes to the Page family who welcomed little Juliet on the 19 May. Juliet weighed in at an extremely healthy 4.85kg (10 lb 11 oz in old money!) and was 58cm long at birth. Juliet is pictured with big sister Sofia, described by doting dad as ‘trouble with a capital T!’.

Student news

End of Semester River Cruise

The river rocked on the 2nd of June when 58 SPH staff and students took an end-of-semester cruise on the Captain Cook Cruise boat. The happy crowed enjoyed good food, music and even a bit of dancing at the end. It was a great time for staff and students to get to know each other outside of the classroom. There were only two disappointments of the night – the absence of Richard Taylor and no lemons to go with the Coronas!  Big thanks to Liz Gear for organising the event. 

Students enjoying the river cruise

ANZAC Student Dinner

SPH coursework students gathered together at The Vietnamese Restaurant in the Valley to celebrate ANZAC day.  A delectable five course banquet was enjoyed by all.  The event, organised by Anna Rodney, was attended by about 20 people, some of whom had their first experience wrestling with chopsticks!

Anzac Day dinner

Publications

Lancet profiles ‘extraordinary thinker’ Wayne Hall

Wayne Hall

SPH’s Professor Wayne Hall is the subject of a profile in The Lancet, published 13 June.

The leading UK-based medical journal profiles Professor Hall, a global leader in drug and alcohol research, and reviews his career which begin in psychiatric nursing and has continued in roles at the New South Wales Health commission, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), and UQ, where is now Professor of Public Health Policy at the School of Population Health.

Professor Hall has also acted as expert adviser to the World Health Organisation on the effects of cannabis use and the effectiveness of drug substitution treatments.

In the profile, Professor Hall recalls how colleagues argued against his taking up the position of deputy director at NDARC in the late 1980s.

“I was advised against it by people who said drug and alcohol research was a backwater,” he recalls.

“The field at the time didn’t really exist in Australia.”

Professor Hall’s response? “I decided to give it a go,” he said.

In the profile, SPH Head, Professor Alan Lopez describes Professor Hall as having “a deserved reputation worldwide for careful science, prudent interpretation and the courage to say what he thought the evidence suggested, and not what others might have wanted to hear.”

“He’s an extraordinary thinker and a global leader in public policy in health and social development.”

“He simply has a very good sense of what can, and cannot be reliably said about risks to health.”

Lancet paper claims smokeless tobacco less harmful
SPH research published in The Lancet, suggests an oral, smoke-free tobacco – currently banned in Australia - could provide health benefits if smokers switched to using it.

Swedish “snus”, commonly used in Sweden and in other parts of Europe, delivers nicotine when a small ball of the substance is inserted under the lip and held against the gums. Its increased use in Sweden over the past 20 years has coincided with substantial reductions in smoking prevalence and tobacco-related deaths.

SPH’s Dr Coral Gartner and colleagues used state-of-the art burden of disease statistical methods to assess the potential health effects of snus in Australia. The study estimated the difference in life expectancy between those who had never smoked and those with varying scales of tobacco use, including switching from smoking to snus.

Because it is not smoked, snus does not produce any of the combustion products of smoking and it is manufactured in a way that produces low levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines, the main carcinogens responsible for oral cancers.

Dr Gartner said the study found that the difference in years of life gained from quitting all tobacco or switching to snus, compared to continuing to smoke, was small. However, the best gains were seen in those who quit all tobacco.

Dr Gartner said further research was needed to investigate whether snus would be a useful tool in reducing smoking prevalence in inveterate smokers, who continue to be at high risk of significant health problems.

Mums who drink, smoke risk kids using cannabis
Five SPH researchers – including lead author Dr Mohammed Reza Hayatbakhsh – and colleagues from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre and Mater Hospital saw their paper Association of Maternal Smoking and Alcohol Consumption with Young Adults’ Cannabis Use: A Prospective Study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in June. Based on research from the longitudinal Mater-University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP), the paper examined 1) whether maternal use of tobacco and consumption of alcohol when a child is five and 14 years of age predict cannabis use in young adults and 2) whether this association is explained by possible confounding or mediating factors.

Findings revealed that, after controlling for possible confounders, maternal smoking at 14 years was associatied with frequent use of cannabis in offspring at 21 years, regardless of maternal smoking at five years. Children of mothers who drank more than one glass of alcohol per day at five years and contined at 14 years were more likely to use cannabis in early adulthood.

Dr Hayatbaksh said the association between maternal substance use and offspring cannabis use was partially mediated by adolescent externalising behaviour and smoking measured at 14 years.

“Preventive programs that address maternal and adolescent tobacco use and adolescent externalising behaviour should be considered as strategies to reduce cannabis use by young adults,” he said.

The paper’s other SPH authors are Dr Rosa Alati, Professor Konrad Jamrozik, Professor Jake Najman and Dr Abdullah A. Mamun.

Light exercise cuts diabetes risk
SPH research, in collaboration with the International Diabetes Institute, has found that even light exercise – such as standing, not sitting, while on the phone – cuts the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The research, published this month in international journal Diabetes Care, studied 173 southeast Queensland adults and found the association between light exercise and reduced blood glucose levels was irrespective of how much moderate to vigorous activity they did.

SPH researcher Genevieve Healy stressed that people should not replace the recommended 30 minutes of daily medium to intense exercise, and said that research confirmed that the more time spent in moderate to vigorous activity was associated with lower blood glucose levels.

“And the more time we’re sedentary, such as sitting down watching television, the higher blood glucose levels.”

“What this study shows for the first time using objective measures is that doing light intensity activities, rather than sitting, is associated with beneficial health outcomes.”

Ms Healy suggested even activities such as folding clothes while watching television may have positive effects on blood-sugar levels.

Chronically high blood glucose concentrations – or hyperglycemia – are recognised as a precursor of type 2 diabetes and are associated with an elevated risk of heart attacks or strokes.

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