Current Projects
Selected Research and Projects
2008
What is the burden of dementia in urban dwelling Indigenous Australians?
Research Team: Broe GA, Jackson Pulver LR, Chalkey S, Flicker L, Grayson D.
A joint initiative of the Ageing Research Centre/National Health & Medical Research Council Ageing Well Network, the Prince of Wales Hospital Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, the Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit, SPHCM UNSW.
Working in partnerships and collaborations with a number of Aboriginal communities and organisations throughout NSW, this project is asking the following questions for Aboriginal people living in NSW who are aged 45 years and over: What proportion of Aboriginal people has a dementia? What types of dementia occur amongst Aboriginal people? How is cognitive impairment, leading to dementia, best measured in Aboriginal communities? What is the meaning of "dementia" for Aboriginal people themselves? How is dementia best measured in Aboriginal communities? What are the causes of dementia in Aboriginal communities? Life span causes related to known social, economic and educational disadvantages? Immediate causes related to know high rates and early onset of chronic diseases? Early infections such as otitis media? Mid life heart and vascular diseases and stroke? What problems does dementia cause? How are people with dementia cared for in the communities? What is the burden of dementia for the carers?
Due for completion 2010.
The Gudaga Project: Understanding the health, development and service use of Aboriginal children in an urban environment 2008-2012
Research team: Comino E, Harris E, Jackson Pulver L, Harris M, Smith P, Kong K, Kemp L.
NHMRC
The Gudaga project is a birth cohort of Aboriginal children that will be followed from 18 months to 5 years and describes their health, development and service (health and children's) use. This is the first study of its kind in Eastern Australia. The research team are working closely with stakeholders in Aboriginal health care including the Aboriginal community to implement the research. The research will contribute to services for Aboriginal children in the local and wider community.
The Gudaga project is continuation of the 2006 collaboration:
Health status and development among Aboriginal infants in an urban community
Research team: Comino E, Craig P, Harris E, McDermott D, Harris M, Henry R, Jackson Pulver LR.
NHMRC
The aim of this research was to describe the obstetric outcomes and service use for Aboriginal infants and their mothers in an urban community. It also aimed describe health, development and health service use at 12 months for Aboriginal infants in an urban community. Lastly,to identify issues that mothers of Aboriginal infants would like addressed to provide opportunities for themselves and their children to improve their health and well being.
2007
Indigenous Ageing and Cognition Study - Aboriginal Health and Ageing Brief
Research Team: Broe GA, Jackson Pulver LR, Arkles R, McDonald H, Chalkey S, Kelso W.
A Project supported by the NSW Health and Ageing Network.
Developed by the Ageing Research Centre - Prince of Wales Hospital and Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit.
This research aims to establish a longitudinal study of Aboriginal health and ageing covering urban and regional/rural contexts. Two main aims are to establish basic care needs and support systems re ageing and disability and to determine longitudinal factors for successful and unsuccessful cognitive ageing with an emphasis on educational and social factors.
Literature survey and literature review due 2008.
"Aboriginal Ageing: Is there such a thing?" presented at the Social Policy Research Centre Seminar Program, Session, 2, 2007, can be viewed
here .
An Overview of the Current Knowledge of the Social Determinants of Indigenous Health
Contributors: Australia: Jackson Pulver L & Harris E; New Zealand: Waldon J.
Commission on Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organisation
This working paper was prepared for the 2007 Symposium on the Social Determinants of Indigenous Health in Adelaide as part of the work of the World Health Organisation's Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The report looks at indigenous health and inequalities between indigenous and non-indigenous populations internationally. It then looks at the social determinants that underpin these inequalities. Our work was to contribute information from Australia and New Zealand, which appears in Chapter 9 (from p. 89). Large file warning.
Download here.
2006
Barawul Yana: Better strategies for the recruitment, retention and support of Indigenous medical students in Australia - A NSW Report
Research Team: Jackson Pulver L, Green S, Arkles R, Guthrie J, Sutherland S, Dance P, Dejanovic A, McDermott D.
The UNSW component of the Footprints to the Future collaboration investigating the recruitment and retention of Indigenous students in medicine. Barawul Yana identified the high school years as an important window of opportunity for encouraging and supporting the retention of Indigenous students through to tertiary education. A core component of the research was to examine the role of unversity-based health career residential programs in facilitating the entry of students into higher degrees in medicine and other health professions.
Published as
Barawul Yana: Better strategies for the recruitment, retention and support of Indigenous medical students in Australia - A NSW Report. September 2007. A
community report has also been prepared.
Evaluation of the Tirkandi Inaburra Cultural and Development Centre Program
Research Team: Spooner C, Cunneen C, Jackson Pulver L, Howard J.
Evaluation of a voluntary three to six month program which aims to empower Aboriginal youth to develop and draw on their own resilience in order to take responsibility for their own lives, develop strategies to deal with their problems and hence minimize the risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system.
Early results of the evaluation presented at the 2007 Australian Social Policy Research Conference can be viewed
here .
'Filling the Gap' Indigenous Dental Program
Research Team: Fitzpatrick S, Jackson Pulver LR, Ritchie J, Norrie M.
Wuchopperen Health Service Board of Directors, 'Filling the Gap' Steering Committee
'Filling the Gap' enables the provision of services by qualified dental practitioners who volunteer to provide oral health and dental services to clients of Wuchopperen Health Service, a rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Service based in Cairns, Queensland. The program has now been running for eighteen months and stakeholders are keen to learn how the program is perceived and whether it can be improved. The investigation team seeks to find out what is the worth or value of the program to all parties involved and to examine barriers and enablers to the program's provision as well as its sustainability, which may have implications for similar services. The investigators expect that results from this evaluation research will inform advocacy for future service provision.
Due for completion early 2008.
2005
Kinchela Boys Home Strategic Plan
Research Team: Jackson Pulver LR, Minniecon R, McDermott D, Blignault I, Guthrie J, Clifford A.
World Vision Australia and OATSIH NSW.
Several hundred Aboriginal boys (now known as the KBH men) from NSW were forcibly removed to Kinchela Boys' Home (KBH) during last century. KBH men wish to develop programs and projects to address their needs and those of their families and future generations, through the development of a Kinchela Boys' Home Aboriginal Corporation Strategic Plan for 2005-2009. In collaboration with KBH men and others, this project involved a series of consultations (including interviews and meetings) around NSW and further afield. The final plan is being produced in both formal and community versions, and has been presented at community forums.
Published as McDermott D, Minniecon R, Jackson Pulver L, Blignault I, Clifford A & Guthrie J.
Bringing Them Home - Kinchela Boys' Home Aboriginal Corporation Strategic Plan. In press.
Footprints to the future: strategies for recruiting Indigenous medical students
CI: Drysdale M. Research Team UNSW: Jackson Pulver L, Green S, Sutherland D, Arkles R, Guthrie J, Sutherland S, Dance P, Dejanovic A, McDermott D.
RUSC
The aim of the project is to increase the number of Indigenous students applying for Medicine, and ultimately, successfully completing a medical course. The specific objectives are:
- To conduct a national audit of Indigenous student health career promotion and support programs
- The identification and evaluation of best practices in career promotion in rural areas nationally
- The development of a means to identify Indigenous students interested in health careers
- The development of a means to continue the support of students
- The development of a means to coordinate the program at a national level.
Published as Drysdale M, Faulkner S & Chesters J (Eds) ( 2006).
Footprints Forwards: Better strategies for the recruitment, retention and support of Indigenous medical students, Monash University School of Rural Health, Moe.
Overseas Trained Doctors in Aboriginal Health Services
Research Team: Hill P, Wakerman J, Boffa J, Wearne S, Zwi A, Cox L, Leon D, Martin M, Toby S, Lennox D, McDermott D, Jackson Pulver LR, Whelan A, Durey A.
CRC Aboriginal Health.
The recruitment of medical staff to remote and rural Australia has been a long term problem, addressed in recent initiatives by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments through the recruitment of Overseas Trained Doctors. Many Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services have also been heavily dependent on Overseas Trained Doctors to meet their staffing needs. For many Overseas Trained Doctors, service in Aboriginal health services presents a challenge professionally, given the profile and severity of illness in Aboriginal communities, and the social and cultural challenges of working with Australia’s most disempowered communities. Overseas Trained Doctors face the dual task of adapting to Australian and Indigenous Australian cultural contexts. Recruitment practices, orientation, education and professional support are frequently inadequate. Restrictions in terms of practice location, registration and Medicare entitlements place additional stresses on these doctors and their families.
This research aimed to collate current information on the recruitment and supply of Overseas Trained Doctors working in government and community controlled Aboriginal health services, to analyse the factors affecting their professional and social integration, and to examine their training and support needs. The project also proposed educational and professional strategies in response to any deficiencies or challenges identified.
Published as
Arkles RS, Hill PS &Jackson Pulver LR
. Overseas-trained doctors in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services: many unanswered questions. MJA, 2007; 186 (10): 528-530.
2004
Healthy Lifestyle Intervention Project
Research Team: Jackson Pulver LR, Clifford A, Ivers R, Richmond R, Shakeshaft A, McDermott D, Mattick R.
Alcohol Education Rehabilitation Fund
The Healthy Lifestyle Project involves the development or compilation, and then subsequent evaluation of, a healthy lifestyle intervention, of which alcohol misuse is the primary measure of interest, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people presenting for treatment at an Aboriginal Medical Service. More specifically the evaluation component of the project will involve:
- Evaluation of the brief intervention, including a pilot study of training health professionals in the delivery of the brief intervention to assess both the uptake of the use of the intervention and the sustainability of such training
- Evaluation of the acceptability and suitability of the intervention to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, and
- Development of a research plan to further evaluate the intervention if the pilot study is successful (for example, by randomised controlled trial).
Cancer in Indigenous people of New South Wales 1994-2002
Authors: Supramaniam R, Grindley H, Jackson Pulver L.
The objective of this research was to describe, for the first time, mortality from cancer for Aboriginal residents of New South Wales. Baseline cancer data for Indigenous people in Australia are sparse. Most data has come from the least populous states and territories. Indigenous people in NSW comprise 2.1% of the population are generally more urbanised than those from other areas and may have a different cancer profile.
Published as Supramanian R, Grindley H, Pulver LJ. Cancer mortality in Aboriginal people in New South Wales, Australia, 1994-2002.
Aust N Z J Public Health, 2006 Oct; 30 (5): 453-6.
2003
Brief: Identify Aboriginal Health Researchers
Research Team: Jackson Pulver LR, McDermott D, Harris E, Zwi A.
CRIAH
The aim of this brief was to scope the amount of Indigenous research in NSW and through that to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to become actively involved in research. The information gathered was to better inform research and planning within NSW.
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