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Awards
AEA Travel Award
AEA Mentoring Award
Annual Conference
Details on Annual Conference page
AEA Constitution
2006 Constitution
2008 Accepted
Meetings
VTEG one day scientific meeting
Other Conferences
Other
AEA response to Nutbeam report on Review of Public Health research
Privacy Act Review: ALRC Discussion Paper (DP72)
Epidemiology Interest Areas and Expertise
Australasian Epidemiologis News
Courses
Ken Rothman’s Principles of Epidemiology workshop - Auckland 4th to 7th November 2008
Courses in Injury Prevention and Falls Prevention
ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The 2010 AEA Annual Scientific Meeting
University of Sydney
30th of September and 1st of October
CONSTITUTION
Ammended Constiution 2008
A quorum of members, at the AEA General Meeting held on Friday 12 May, passed the amendments to the AEA Constitution in the affirmative. This will allow the Annual General Meeting to be conducted by teleconference. This was necessary because this year the AEA's participation in the Public Health Congress occurs earlier than the usual Annual Scientific Meeting/AGM timing in September.
On the 18th September 2006, the amended Constitution was proposed at the AEA AGM. It was passed by a majority vote, with the understanding that further amendments are to be considered at the 2007 AGM.
AEA Constitution 2006
If you have any queries or comments, please contact Rosanne Freak-Poli (AEA Executive Officer) at Rosanne.Freak-Poli[at]mcri.edu.au.
MEETINGS
VTEG one day scientific meeting
Dear Victorian and Tasmanian (VTEG) members of AEA,
Please note in you diary the date for the VTEG one day scientific meeting:
Friday 5th September, Trinity College,
University of Melbourne. 9.00am - 5.30pm.
Program
If you didn't make it up to Brisbane for the Population Health Congress, this is your only opportunity to network and socialise with other AEA members at a scientific meeting in 2008, and to hear about the work your Victorian and Tasmanian colleagues are doing. You can also have your say at the AEA Annual General Meeting which will be held after lunch at 1.30pm (to be teleconferenced with other States). Lunch is at 12.30, and drinks are at 5.00pm, providing two great opportunities to network and socialise.
An opportunity too good to be missed!
Registration brochure
Registration extended to Monday 1st September (before 9:00 am)
There will be several speakers over the day, highlighting a variety of work being done in Victoria and Tasmania. Confirmed speakers include Kirsty Sanderson (Menzies Tasmania), Malcolm Sim (Monash), George Patton (Murdoch Childrens and RCH), Kylie Hesketh (Deakin), and Rhonda Small (LaTrobe). More details will be sent soon.
We encourage all of you to come along to support your local chapter, have some fun and to listen to fascinating tales about epidemiology that is happening right on your doorstep. Please forward this invitation to your students, your department or anyone else who might be interested.
For further details or to register your interest, please contact Michaela Riddell at VIDRL on (03)9342 3920 or michaela.riddell@mh.org.au or just complete the registration form and return by Fax or mail.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Best wishes,
VTEG Organising Team
Fiona Clay
Michaela Riddell
Verity Cleland
Veronica Collins
(*replace [at] with @ for email address to work)
OTHER CONFERENCES
COURSES
Ken Rothman’s Principles of Epidemiology workshop - Auckland 4th to 7th November 2008
The University of Auckland’s School of Population Health is very excited to announce Ken Rothman will be coming to Auckland to run his four day workshop on Principles of Epidemiology.
The course will stress the conceptual foundations of epidemiologic research, and present the methodological approaches that stem from these conceptual foundations.
Areas to be covered include: causal inference, measurement of disease frequency and exposure effects, the principles of epidemiologic study design and data analysis, assessment and control of confounding factors, stratified analysis, the use of matching, the evaluation of interaction, and the evaluation of dose-response trends.
There is no prerequisite knowledge requirement, but those with a basic knowledge of statistics and some experience in epidemiology will benefit most from the course.
There is a registration discount for AEA members and students.
Further information and the registration flyer can be found on the course website at www.epidemiology2008.co.nz
COURSES IN INJURY PREVENTION AND FALLS PREVENTION
Two-day workshop in Injury Prevention
Date: Friday 8 and Monday 11 August, 2008
Venue: The University of Sydney
This introductory level course is a two-day workshop covering principles of
injury prevention, policy and practice, and injury-specific content. It is
offered by the George Institute for International Health to students of
Graduate Diploma/Masters/Doctor of Public Health/PhD programs and to
external individuals interested in, or working in, injury prevention and
control, or related fields.
One-semester online course in Injury Epidemiology, Prevention and Control
Semester commences: Monday 28 July, 2008
This one-semester online unit teaches students about the principles of
injury epidemiology, prevention and control. It provides a basis for the
assessment and investigation of injury issues, and the development,
implementation and evaluation of injury prevention programs. It offers:
- Practical case studies to illustrate injury issues and promote interaction
- Online discussions with leading injury control professionals
- Content developed by leaders in injury prevention and control throughout
Australia.
One-semester online course in Falls Prevention and the Older Person
Semester commences: Monday 28 July, 2008
This one-semester online unit will teach students about the principles of
falls prevention and falls injury prevention in the older person, with a
focus on the practical aspects of these principles. If offers:
- Content materials developed by leaders in the field of falls prevention
- Interactive online discussions, moderated by an expert in the field
- Practical case studies to promote learning
For more information on the courses above, please go to
www.thegeorgeinstitute.org or email us directly via
injurycourses@george.org.au or phone (02) 9657 0300
We acknowledge the support of The Australian Government Department of
Health and Ageing's Public Health Education and Research Program during the development of these courses.
Deadline for abstract submission is 5pm Friday 1st August 2008.
OTHER
AEA response to Nutbeam report on Review of Public Health research
30th June 2008
On behalf of the Australasian Epidemiological Association (AEA), I would
like to make the following points in relation to the NHMRC Review of Public
Health Research. These comments are based on consultation within our AEA
membership and reflect the views of the epidemiologists who responded.
1) Improving adequacy of grants
NHMRC needs to provide more mid-career public health researcher support
grants/fellowships to allow for the new body of skilled people emerging
from the Capacity Building Grants (CBG) to be funded beyond the CBG phase.
It is near sighted to create all this new expertise and not provide extra
CDAs or SRFs.
In addition, there is an ongoing, urgent need to secure longer-term
positions for medium and junior staff. As well as senior researchers
needing support to develop a program of work, to ensure that they are not
lost to other countries (or alternative employment locally), we also need
a system for providing junior staff with some security. This is
particularly important for those who develop good research assistant
skills, and have no desire to seek promotion. They are a valuable resource
that is wasted at the end of many projects. These skilled people are often
lost to the system altogether because they can't wait around for the next
funded project.
2) Improving relevance and skills of panels
Project grants need to be reviewed by people with high level methodology
skills. This is not just the case for project grants submitted to the
public health GRPs; we have had several reports from recipients of non
public health GRP reviews that there has been inadequate, or even
inaccurate, epidemiological assessment. Currently, we believe there are
projects funded that are not feasible in their submitted form, or have no
prospect of finding significant results because of design or sample size.
Meanwhile, excellent projects fail to be funded. As it is, a lower
fraction of public health reviewed project grants are deemed worth funding
suggesting that these GRPs are rating their grants lower than they should.
Epidemiologists or "epidemiologically experienced" biostatisticians need to
be spread beyond the public health GRPs more. There, they can not only
assist in appropriate review of all grants, but also raise the bar for
other GRPs through their rigour. This may redress the balance somewhat,
leading to more scores of four beyond public health GRPs and spreading the
limited money more evenly.
There should be at least two such experts per panel as having one
epidemiologist only can lead to that person having too much 'power', whilst
having two would allow for constructive discussion.
3) Other issues
Infrastructure funding.
High costs of infrastructure are unmet this is particularly evident in
public health research because of the need to create extensive networks,
obtain ethics approval for large multisite studies, establish
community-based research etc. These activities require considerable
administrative resources, incurring large expenses and are quite different
from equipment and reagent costs related to lab-based research that can be
incorporated in grant applications. To facilitate the above process, it
would be advantageous to have two-stage granting process, where stage 1
requests funding for the exploratory and establishment process and stage 2
is implementation? A successful pilot would ensure (or improve the chance
of) effective use of large grants
In particular a funding mechanism needs to be developed to help maintain
major cohort studies of national significance e.g. to fund data managers,
administrative costs etc. This could include a requirement for increased
data sharing. The only significant cohort studies with secure maintenance
funding are the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health, HILDA and
the Growing Up in Australia Study - all of these were Commonwealth
initiatives. Other cohort studies have endless problems trying to get even
minimal maintenance support.
Thankyou for the opportunity to comment on this important Nutbeam NHMRC
Review of Public Health Research.
Yours sincerely
A/Prof Jane Halliday
Epidemiology Interest Areas and Expertise
Dear AEA Members,
Please fill in the 'Epidemiology Interest Areas and Expertise' questions now located here.
We are interested in the range of educational backgrounds, qualifications, expertise and interest areas of our membership. The results will be used to identify persons who are able to give advice or contribute towards their specific interests and expertise. Previously this information has been used to select panellists to represent AEA at the 2008 Population Congress – choosing people who identified themselves as interested (experts) in the Congress themes i.e. Environment and Health, Social Cohesion, Social Capital and Health, and Food and Health.
Have a nice day,
Jane Halliday (President) & Rosanne Freak-Poli (EO)
Privacy Act Review: ALRC Discussion Paper (DP72)
Submitted on behalf of the Australasian Epidemiological Association by Jane Halliday, President:
The Australasian Epidemiological Association (AEA) sent in a short submission to the original Issues Papers in December 2004. This submission focused on consent for use of health information databases. The two proposals in Part H of DP72 that have taken points from the AEA submission are summarised below and a short response is provided:
Proposal 58.4, which refers to the degree of weight that an HREC should place on collection, use and disclosure of information without consent, is more balanced and workable. Use of the phrase ‘outweighs’, rather than ‘outweighs to a substantial degree’ or ‘substantially outweighs’, will help prevent an overcautious approach by HRECs to use of health information in epidemiological studies.
Proposal 58.5 addresses the need to develop rules related to the impracticable nature of seeking consent in some instances and that there is an imperative for such rules to be aligned with the National Statement. This is an important proposal and AEA would be interested in assisting with development of these rules in future.
Further comment from AEA is made in response to Proposal 57.2 which defines a health service. Public health services focus on prevention of ill health. Therefore, point (a)(i) should read: “assess, record, maintain or improve the individual’s health and wellbeing and prevent future ill health”. Or a new point a(iv) could read “prevent or delay the development of illness, injury or disability in the individual and promote good health”.
Submitted on behalf of the Australasian Epidemiological Association
by Jane Halliday, President
Letter of acknowledgement from ALRC.
Australasian Epidemiologist
Instructions for authors.
Please email all submissions to: editor[at]aea.asn.au *
For queries please contact the editors:
Verity Cleland & Sarah McNaughton
Co-Editors, Australasian Epidemiologist
Australasian Epidemiological Association
c/o - Centre for Physical Activity & Nutrition Research
Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy
Burwood VICTORIA 3125 Australia
T: +61 3 9251 7244 or +61 3 9251 7842
F: +61 3 9244 6017
E: editors@aea.asn.au
W: http://www.aea.asn.au
(*replace [at] with @ for email address to work)
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