Socioeconomic variation in incidence of primary and secondary major cardiovascular disease events: an Australian population-based prospective cohort study.

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) disproportionately affects disadvantaged people, but reliable quantitative evidence on socioeconomic variation in CVD incidence in Australia is lacking. This study aimed to quantify socioeconomic variation in rates of primary and secondary CVD events in mid-age and older Australians.

Methods: Baseline data (2006-2009) from the 45 and Up Study, an Australian cohort involving 267,153 men and women aged ≥ 45, were linked to hospital and death data (to December 2013).

Closing the Aboriginal child injury gap: targets for injury prevention.

Objective: To describe the leading mechanisms of hospitalised unintentional injury in Australian Aboriginal children and identify the injury mechanisms with the largest inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.

Methods: We used linked hospital and mortality data to construct a whole of population birth cohort including 1,124,717 children (1,088,645 non-Aboriginal and 35,749 Aboriginal) born in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, between 1 July 2000 and 31 December 2012. Injury hospitalisation rates were calculated per person years at risk for injury mechanisms coded according to the ICD10-AM classification.

A case study of enhanced clinical care enabled by Aboriginal health research: the Hearing, EAr health and Language Services (HEALS) project.

Objective: To describe and evaluate Hearing EAr health and Language Services (HEALS), a New South Wales (NSW) health initiative implemented in 2013 and 2014 as a model for enhanced clinical services arising from Aboriginal health research.

Methods: A case-study involving a mixed-methods evaluation of the origins and outcomes of HEALS, a collaboration among five NSW Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS), the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, NSW Health, the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council, and local service providers. Service delivery data was collected fortnightly; semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare providers and caregivers of children who participated in HEALS.

Inequalities in pediatric avoidable hospitalizations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in Australia: a population data linkage study.

Background: Australian Aboriginal children experience a disproportionate burden of social and health disadvantage. Avoidable hospitalizations present a potentially modifiable health gap that can be targeted and monitored using population data. This study quantifies inequalities in pediatric avoidable hospitalizations between Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.

Health professional and community perspectives on reducing barriers to accessing specialist health care in metropolitan Aboriginal communities: A semi-structured interview study.

Aim: To describe the perspectives of health professionals and communities on an innovative health service delivery project, Hearing EAr health and Language Services (HEALS). HEALS was a government funded initiative to improve access to specialist ear, nose and throat and speech pathology services for Aboriginal families living in metropolitan areas.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 health-care professionals (clinicians, health service managers and Aboriginal health workers) and 16 care givers of children who participated in HEALS.

Comparison of influenza vaccination coverage between immigrant and Australian-born adults.

Australia has a large immigrant population but there are few data regarding whether influenza vaccine coverage in adults varies according to country of birth. We quantified and compared self-reported influenza vaccination coverage between Australian-born and immigrant residents aged ⩾49years enrolled in a large cohort (the 45 and Up Study), surveyed in 2012 and 2013. Estimated vaccine coverage was adjusted for age, sex and other factors known to be associated with vaccine uptake.

Is poor oral health a risk marker for incident cardiovascular disease hospitalisation and all-cause mortality? Findings from 172 630 participants from the prospective 45 and Up Study.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between oral health and incident hospitalisation for ischaemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), ischaemic stroke and peripheral vascular disease (PVD) and all-cause mortality.

Design: Prospective population-based study of Australian men and women aged 45 years or older, who were recruited to the 45 and Up Study between January 2006 and April 2009; baseline questionnaire data were linked to hospitalisations and deaths up to December 2011. Study exposures include tooth loss and self-rated health of teeth and gums at baseline.

Australian trachoma surveillance annual report, 2013.

Australia remains the only developed country to have endemic levels of trachoma (a prevalence of 5% or greater among children) in some regions. Endemic trachoma in Australia is found predominantly in remote and very remote Aboriginal communities. The Australian Government funds the National Trachoma Surveillance and Reporting Unit to collate, analyse and report trachoma prevalence data and document trachoma control strategies in Australia through an annual surveillance report.

Healthcare Resource Utilisation Associated with Herpes Zoster in a Prospective Cohort of Older Australian Adults.

Background: Herpes zoster (HZ) is a common condition that increases in incidence with older age but vaccines are available to prevent the disease. However, there are limited data estimating the health system burden attributable to herpes zoster by age.

Methods: In this study, we quantified excess healthcare resource usage associated with HZ during the acute/sub-acute period of disease (21days before to 90 days after onset) in 5952 cases and an equal number of controls matched on age, sex, and prior healthcare resource usage.

Barriers and facilitators to evaluation of health policies and programs: Policymaker and researcher perspectives.

Our research sought to identify the barriers and facilitators experienced by policymakers and evaluation researchers in the critical early stages of establishing an evaluation of a policy or program. We sought to determine the immediate barriers experienced at the point of initiating or commissioning evaluations and how these relate to broader system factors previously identified in the literature. We undertook 17 semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of senior policymakers (n=9) and senior evaluation researchers (n=8) in Australia.

Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage modifies the relationship between weight status and weight-related satisfaction.

Are adults living in disadvantaged communities less likely to recognize or be dissatisfied with being overweight than their counterparts in more affluent areas? Multilevel logistic regression was used to analyze a cross-sectional sample of 10 880 people aged 15 years or older selected from the 2009 wave of the 'Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia'. Outcome variables included whether participants perceived themselves as 'overweight' or not, and their self-reported (dis)satisfaction with their weight. Key covariates included: (i) actual weight status, derived from the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for 'normal', 'overweight' and 'obese' intervals of body mass index, on the basis of self-reported height and weight; and (ii) the Socio-Economic Index For Areas, an indicator of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage defined for Census Collection Districts.

The Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH): a long-term platform for closing the gap.

The full potential for research to improve Aboriginal health has not yet been realised. This paper describes an established long-term action partnership between Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs), the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales (AH&MRC), researchers and the Sax Institute, which is committed to using high-quality data to bring about health improvements through better services, policies and programs. The ACCHSs, in particular, have ensured that the driving purpose of the research conducted is to stimulate action to improve health for urban Aboriginal children and their families.

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science : Seattle, WA, USA. 24-26 September 2015.

Introduction to the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration: advancing efficient methodologies through team science and community partnerships Cara Lewis, Doyanne Darnell, Suzanne Kerns, Maria Monroe-DeVita, Sara J. Landes, Aaron R. Lyon, Cameo Stanick, Shannon Dorsey, Jill Locke, Brigid Marriott, Ajeng Puspitasari, Caitlin Dorsey, Karin Hendricks, Andria Pierson, Phil Fizur, Katherine A.

"There's a housing crisis going on in Sydney for Aboriginal people": focus group accounts of housing and perceived associations with health.

Background: Poor housing is widely cited as an important determinant of the poor health status of Aboriginal Australians, as for indigenous peoples in other wealthy nations with histories of colonisation such as Canada, the United States of America and New Zealand. While the majority of Aboriginal Australians live in urban areas, most research into housing and its relationship with health has been conducted with those living in remote communities. This study explores the views of Aboriginal people living in Western Sydney about their housing circumstances and what relationships, if any, they perceive between housing and health.

Building better research partnerships by understanding how Aboriginal health communities perceive and use data: a semistructured interview study.

Objective: To describe the attitudes and beliefs of health professionals working in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) towards the access, usage and potential value of routinely obtained clinical and research data.

Design, Setting And Participants: Face-to-face, semistructured interviews were conducted with 35 health professionals from 2 urban and 1 regional ACCHS in New South Wales. The interviews were transcribed and themes were identified using an adapted grounded theory approach.

Gender, mental health, physical health and retirement: A prospective study of 21,608 Australians aged 55-69 years.

Objectives: We examined retirement transitions by gender, and different associations between retirement, physical function and mental health.

Methods: Data for 21,608 participants aged 55-69 from the 45 and Up Study were used. Generalised estimating equations were used to investigate longitudinal associations between retirement with psychological distress (Kessler score, K10) and physical dysfunction across two time points, by gender separately.

Trends in genital warts by socioeconomic status after the introduction of the national HPV vaccination program in Australia: analysis of national hospital data.

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination targeting females 12-13 years commenced in Australia in 2007, with catch-up of females 13-26 years until the end of 2009. No analyses of HPV vaccination program impact by either socioeconomic or geographic factors have been reported for Australia.

Methods: Hospital admissions between July 2004-June 2011 involving a diagnosis of genital warts were obtained from a comprehensive national database.

The development of ORACLe: a measure of an organisation's capacity to engage in evidence-informed health policy.

Background: Evidence-informed policymaking is more likely if organisations have cultures that promote research use and invest in resources that facilitate staff engagement with research. Measures of organisations' research use culture and capacity are needed to assess current capacity, identify opportunities for improvement, and examine the impact of capacity-building interventions. The aim of the current study was to develop a comprehensive system to measure and score organisations' capacity to engage with and use research in policymaking, which we entitled ORACLe (Organisational Research Access, Culture, and Leadership).

Using Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme data for pharmacoepidemiological research: challenges and approaches.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) dataset provides detailed information about subsidised medicines dispensed in Australia and is increasingly used for pharmacoepidemiological research. Use of the PBS dataset provides unique opportunities for such research, but comes with its own set of challenges that must be considered and addressed. This paper outlines some issues that commonly arise when using PBS data - relating to accurate identification of medicine dispensings and how to define medicine exposure - and suggests some possible approaches for dealing with them.

Getting Bigger, Quicker? Gendered Socioeconomic Trajectories in Body Mass Index across the Adult Lifecourse: A Longitudinal Study of 21,403 Australians.

Do socioeconomic inequities in body mass index (BMI) widen across the adult lifecourse? BMI data for 29,104 male and 32,454 female person-years aged 15 years and older (21,403 persons in total) were extracted from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia between 2006 and 2012. Multilevel linear regression was used to examine age and gender specific trajectories in BMI by quintiles of neighborhood socioeconomic circumstance. Models were adjusted for probable sources of confounding, including couple status, number of children resident, if somebody in the household had been pregnant in the last 12 months, the highest level of education achieved, the average household gross income, and the percentage of time in the last year spent unemployed.

Research impact: neither quick nor easy.

Greenhalgh and Fahy's paper about the 2014 Research Excellence Framework provides insights into the challenges of assessing research impact. Future research assessment exercises should consider how best to include measurement of indirect and non-linear impact and whether efforts in knowledge transfer and co-production should be explicitly recognised. Greenhalgh and Fahy's findings also demonstrate that the structure of the assessment exercise can privilege certain kinds of research and may therefore miss some research that has a high impact on policy and practice.