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Infectious Diseases

Responding to infectious diseases and public health risks

Since 2019 our experience of life on earth has changed dramatically. There have been more public health emergencies—pandemics, floods, fires and other disasters—and these emergencies are increasingly severe. This is forcing governments, health authorities and individuals to consider how best to respond. There is often no clear solution, and different courses of action can benefit some and burden others. In this theme, we ask questions about how people are adapting to our changing circumstances and what values are important to the public acceptability and legitimacy of proposed solutions.

ACHEEV explores how emerging public health risks are changing the way people live—with each other, and with other animals—and how these risks should be managed. By conducting high quality social and deliberative research, as well as policy and ethics analyses, we can develop recommendations about what should be done.

We are especially focused on how public health policies and programs can reflect and respond to the values of diverse communities, and can ensure they are fair and legitimate.

Current projects

Researchers

Project description

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant global problem. A major driver of the development of AMR is indiscriminate or inappropriate use of antibiotics across various sectors of the community. Building on collaborations with researchers and clinicians across a range of international and local institutions, the aim of this program of research is to better understand the drivers of antibiotic misuse, and the barriers to responsible prescribing in three sectors: consumers in the broader community; aged care providers; and agriculture.

Project partners

Warrigal Care

Funding

  • 2020-2022 - University of Wollongong  Global Challenges Keystone Award, $350,000
  • 2015-2018 - National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Can One Health strategies be more effectively implemented through prior identification of public values? $565,106 AUD. Degeling C, Gilbert L, Wilson A, Kerridge I, Ward M, Stewart C.

Outcomes

Other Outcomes

UOW researchers on the hunt for farmers to participate in new study 

Researchers

Assoc Professor Lynne Keevers, Julaine Allan, Dr Chris Degeling, Dr Katarzyna Olcoń, Dr Mim Fox, Summer Finlay

Project description

Local responses to immediate community need are grounded in contextual knowledge and use existing resources rather than relying on mainstream system-wide interventions. Combining practice based participatory inquiry, action research and policy analysis, this research addresses a knowledge gap of how a local health district (LHD) and an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO) design and deliver interventions to address complex health and social issues in a region in the context of a combined environmental and public health crisis.

Project partners

Waminda: South Coast Women's health and Welfare Aboriginal Corporation. 

Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW

Funding

2020-2023 – Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) COVID 19 Mental Health Research – $425,803

Outcomes

This research project will inform future health system responses to COVID-19 and other disasters by investigating two different community wellbeing interventions delivered in bushfire-ravaged communities on the South Coast of NSW.

Other outcomes

Researchers examine community mental health responses to bushfires, COVID-19

Illawarra Mercury - UOW-led study will guide future health responses to disasters

Researchers

Project description

The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the significance and impact of infection prevention and control (IPC) to levels not seen for decades. This project focuses on health care worker experiences of the politics and practices of IPC during the pandemic with a particular focus on how health care providers balance perceived (and relative) risks and manage ethical and moral conflicts and dilemmas.

Project partners

  • University of Sydney
  • University of Technology Sydney
  • Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service
  • Westmead Hospital
  • Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District

Project website

Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE)

Funding

APPRISE - Special COVID-19 call for research projects 2020-21 $163,000

Outcomes

This project will generate a comprehensive understandings of clinical perspectives on providing and receiving frontline care in a pandemic including the informed preferences of care providers, thereby enhancing quality of life for those giving and receiving it.

Researchers

Project description

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of fair and effective strategies to distribute vaccinations during a pandemic. Irrespective of how long it takes for a pandemic vaccine to be available, however, initial supply will be limited and will likely be exceeded by demand. Working with large multidisciplinary teams from universities and health departments across Australia, we are conducting ethical analysis and bringing the public into deliberation on key issues and dilemmas on how best to distribute limited vaccine resources during times of public health emergency. 

Project partners

Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Disease Emergencies Centre of Research Excellence (APPRISE)

Project website

Community perspectives on distributing an initially limited supply of vaccines in the event of an influenza pandemic

Funding

Department of Health Commonwealth Government of Australia, Citizens’ juries as an extension of the initial pandemic influenza vaccination target groups (TP707690), $123,000

Outcomes

Other outcomes

Interviewed by Liam Mannix for The Age / Sydney Morning Herald - Prisoners and the obese priority groups for COVID-19 vaccine (December 9, 2020)

Researchers

Project description

Successful implementation of public health policies must account for social, ethical and political concerns.  This program of research is part of a larger grant  to develop new approaches to communicable disease surveillance and outbreak response.  Our part of this project aims to identify factors likely to promote or impede the introduction of new technology into communicable disease surveillance programs and effective responses to emerging infectious disease threats. Based on the results we will to develop a robust ethical framework to support policy development and informed decision-making, taking into account intergovernmental, political and border control issues with implications for human rights, distributive justice and international policy.

Project partners

University of Sydney, University of Western Australia, Monash University

Project website

CREID

Funding

2016-2022 - National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre for Research Excellence “Protecting the Public from Emerging Infectious Diseases" $2.5 million

Outcomes

Other outcomes

Researchers

Project description

The incidence and impacts of tuberculosis infections track with social and economic disadvantage – even in high income countries. Consequently, in low burden settings such as Australia the pursuit of TB elimination through targeted latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) screening and health service provision for TB raises a number of ethical issues. These projects examine programmatic constraints and the ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of TB control and prevention in Australia.

Project partners

Funding

  • 2019 - Victorian Tuberculosis Program, Melbourne Heath, Citizens’ Juries on Latent Tuberculosis Infection; $60,000
  • 2018-2019 – UOW Faculty of Social Sciences NHMRC Near Miss Award $10,000
  • 2018-2019 – Australian Respiratory Council Harry Windsor Research Award. “TB elimination: a qualitative investigation of the perspectives of South Asian migrant communities in the Illawarra” $20,000
  • 2016-2018 – TB CRE Research Project Seed Funding $20,000

Outcomes

Researchers

Project description

Childhood vaccination is one of the great public health success stories of the 20th Century, responsible for large reductions in child mortality and in the incidence of once-common diseases. About 95% of five year-old Australian children are fully vaccinated. However a very small proportion of parents refuse vaccination altogether, and others are hesitant. As non-vaccinating families often cluster in certain suburbs or regions, this can increase the risk of disease transmission. This project seeks to engage vaccine hesitant or refusing parents respectfully, to understand their practices from their perspective. We are also engaging with non-vaccinating parents and the general public about how public health authorities and others should act and why, recognising that there will always be members of the Australian community who are cautious about vaccination.

Funding

NHMRC Project Grant #1126543. 2017-2021. $743,963

Outcomes