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  • Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute

    About

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FHMRI Health Equity Impact Program

FHMRI Our Research FHMRI Health Equity Impact Program
     Our research  Our projects  Featured publications  Funders and partners  Group members  Work with us

The FHMRI Health Equity Impact Program (HEIP) brings together researchers from a wide range of backgrounds with a shared interest in promoting safe, inclusive, and equitable places and spaces where people live, learn, work and play.

This is critical for the promotion and advancement of both individual and population health and wellbeing. 

Evidence demonstrates that place-based approaches which pay attention to local social and cultural contexts are essential for promoting health equity and ensuring culturally responsive and inclusive health policies, services, and programs.

HEIP aims to foster collaborations and partnerships that address these issues.

HEIP will include researchers undertaking work in clusters relating to:

  • Aboriginal health and wellbeing
  • Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing
  • Rural and remote health
  • Migrant and refugee health
  • Promoting health and wellbeing through online spaces
  • Promoting health and wellbeing through sports settings and spaces
  • Workplace health promotion
  • Strengthening health and medical education spaces
  • Spaces that respond to the lived experience of mental health and illness

Our research

HEIP will extend beyond specific health issues, and behavioural risk factors, to focus more comprehensively on the social, cultural, and environmental determinants of healthy places and spaces, and their potential to create and sustain more equitable and inclusive health and social outcomes.  

Research projects

Arnhem Digital Stepped Model of Care

Australian Fan’s In Training (Aussie-FIT)

Enough Talk Time for Action (ETTA)

SMART-PH - Digitising Information for Practice in Public Health. 2024. MRFF NCRI ($2,999,842.28).

Targeting Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Expenditure through Citizen Sciences with Aboriginal Communities. 2024. MRFF, ($997,153).

Implementation of the YBMenNT online social and emotional wellbeing health promotion program for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males. 2023. Movember Foundation – Digital Social Connections Challenge (Phase 2). ($399,766)

Transforming Injury for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children through Innovative Knowledge Gain and Co-designed Intervention. 2022. NHMRC, ($642,650).

Knowledge interface co-design of a diabetes and metabolic syndrome intervention with and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living on Ngarrindjeri country. 2022, MRFF, ($756,623).

Key publications

  • The importance of ‘place’ and its influence on rural and remote health and well-being in Australia
  • Advancing accessible kidney transplantation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce
  • Point-of-care testing for sepsis in remote Australia and for First Nations peoples
  • Special Issue in partnership with the Lowitja Institute: centring Indigenous knowledges
  • Health and wellbeing impacts of experiences of public spaces for young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia
  • Experiences and impacts of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure on remote Aboriginal families

HEIP Group members

Co-Directors

Associate Professor Courtney Ryder

Co-Director FHMRI HEIP & Cluster Lead for Aboriginal Health

Matthew Flinders Fellow. Discipline Lead Injury Studies, Public Health

View profile

Professor James Smith

Co-Director FHMRI HEIP & Co-Lead Rural and Remote Health Cluster

Matthew Flinders Professor (Health & Social Equity). Deputy Dean Rural and Remote Health NT

View profile

Leads

Professor Anna Ziersch

Cluster Lead for Migrant and Refugee Health

Professorial Research Fellow, Public Health

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Professor Jaqui Hughes

Cluster Lead for Torres Strait Islander Health & Wellbeing

Matthew Flinders Professor (Medical Education), Professor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Advancement, Rural and Remote Health

View profile

Dr Nayia Cominos

Cluster Co-Lead for Strengthening Health and Medical Education Spaces

Medical Education

View profile

Dr Melissa Opozda

Cluster Lead for Online Spaces

Research Fellow (Men’s Mental Health)

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Dr Bryce Brickley

Cluster Lead for Sports Settings and Spaces

Research Fellow (Men’s Health), Rural and Remote Health

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Associate Professor Karla Canuto

Lead, Research Capacity Building 

Matthew Flinders Fellow. Director, Indigenous Leadership – Rural and Remote Health

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Dr Noemi Tari-Keresztes

Cluster Lead for Lived Experience in Mental Health and Illness

Senior Research Fellow (Lived Experience), Rural and Remote Health

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Professor Jacqueline Bowden

Cluster Lead for Workplace Health

Director, National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA)

View profile

Associate Professor Emma Kennedy

Cluster Co-Lead for Strengthening Health and Medical Education Spaces

Medical Education

View profile

Professor Robyn Aitken

Cluster Co-Lead for Rural and Remote Health

Dean Rural and Remote Health

View profile

Members

Learn more keyboard_arrow_up
  • Associate Professor Annabelle Wilson – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Emma Kennedy – Health & Medical Education Cluster
  • Associate Professor Jacqueline Stephens – Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Kootsy Canuto – Torres Strait Islander Cluster
  • Associate Professor Tania Shelby-James - Lived Experience in Mental Health Cluster
  • Dr Ashlea Bartram - Workplace Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Brooke Spaeth – Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Danny Tsai – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Emily Miller – Migrant and Refugee Health Cluster
  • Dr Joshua Trigg – Online Cluster
  • Dr Kirrilly Thompson – Workplace Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Leigh Moore - Health & Medical Education Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Megan Bailey – Online Cluster
  • Dr Meredyth Forsyth - Health & Medical Education Cluster
  • Dr Moira Walsh – Migrant and Refugee Health Cluster
  • Dr Nicki Parsons – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Mr Luke Arkapaw – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Mr Nathan Harrison – Workplace Health Cluster
  • Mr Tobias Speare  – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Kim Pearce – Rural and Remote Health Cluster + Mental Health
  • Ms Kirsty Baker – Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Maddy Bower – Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Pip Henderson  – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Ms Shanti Omodei-James – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Professor Claire Drummond – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Professor Sharon Lawn – Lived Experience in Mental Health Cluster

Collaborators

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  • Associate Professor Carmel Williams– Centre for Health-in-All-Policies Research Translation (SAHMRI) - Rural and Remote Health Cluster + Research Capacity Building
  • Associate Professor Dan Ellis – Statewide South Australian Trauma Network - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor David Mitchell – NT Department of Health - Lived Experience of Mental Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Gerard O’Reily – Alfred Hospital - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Jennifer Cullen – Synapse Australia – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Kalinda Griffiths - Director Poche SA+NT – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Kylie Stothers – Indigenous Allied Health Australia - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Margaret Cargo – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Nicole Williams - Paediatric Major Trauma Service Women's and Children's Hospital - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Associate Professor Tamara Mackean – Discipline Lead of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Anthea Brand - Orange Health Service – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Brett Shannon – University of Illinois - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Christophe Jackson – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Himanshu Gupta – Lived Experience Mental Health Cluster – Migrant & Refugee Cluster
  • Dr Julianne Coombes – Gunnu-maana (Heal) The George Institute for Global Health - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Kate Hunter – Gunnu-maana (Heal) The George Institute for Global Health - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Mark De Souza, Senior Staff Specialist - Royal Darwin & Palmerston Hospital – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Dr Oliver Black - Australian National University – Rural and Remote Health Cluster + Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Rhiannon Pilkington – Adelaide University – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Dr Shelley Bowen – Health Futures Australia – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Mr Patrick Sharpe – Far West Community Partnerships - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Mr Paul Connelly - Executive Manager Health Workforce, NTPHN – Rural and Remote Health Cluster + Health and Medical Education Cluster
  • Mrs Cheyne Sullivan – SA Pharmacy - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Mrs Le Smith – Heart Foundation (including lead of Healthy Places Healthy Spaces portfolio) – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Mrs Nicole Clinch – SA Health - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Ms Holly Fitsgerald – KidsSafe SA - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Liz Morgan-Brett - Aboriginal Investment Group – Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Nicole Kelly – Statewide South Australian Trauma Network - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Ms Noelene Armstrong – Founder of NT Lived Experience Network – Lived Experience of Mental Health Cluster
  • Ms Renee Kropinyeri – Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network - Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Ms Stephanie Holmes – Association for Alcohol and Other Drugs Agencies NT – Workplace Health Cluster + Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster
  • Professor Maree Toombs – UNSW – Aboriginal Health Cluster
  • Professor Paul Worley- Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network - Aboriginal Health Cluster + Rural and Remote Health Cluster + Strengthening Health and Medical Education Spaces
  • Professor Rebecca Ivers  – UNSW – Aboriginal Health Cluster

Contact us

To learn more contact Associate Professor Courtney Ryder or Professor James Smith.

courtney.ryder@flinders.edu.au

james.smith@flinders.edu.au

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