Over $9 million for health and medical research partnerships

With $4 million administered through NHMRC’s Partnership Project scheme and a leveraged investment of $5 million committed by funding partners, 3 lead investigators and their teams will work with partners to improve health services and processes.

Skin conditions that can lead to bacterial infections are common among Aboriginal children and can reduce their quality of life and lead to serious illness. There is an urgent need for better skin health services for Aboriginal children.

Professor Asha Bowen from the University of Western Australia will work closely with Aboriginal Elders and community members to develop an Aboriginal health practitioner -led skin health assessment and research evaluation initiative.

In partnership with the Child and Adolescent Health and South Metropolitan Health Services, this project will identify and treat harmful skin conditions in Aboriginal children leading to better outcomes.

When Aboriginal women are supported during pregnancy and the early years by culturally safe maternity and child health services, there is a high likelihood that equity with maternal and infant outcomes can be achieved.

Professor Tracy Reibel from Murdoch University will lead a systems pathway to culturally safe maternity and child health care by addressing a known problem of inequity in Aboriginal mothers and infants birth outcomes.

The Partnership Project scheme aims to support the work of healthcare policy and service delivery implementation agencies by supporting the translation of research outcomes into policy and practice and the evaluation of current policy and practice to identify gaps in knowledge.

Full details of the researchers and projects funded are available to download on NHMRC’s outcomes of funding rounds page.

Quotes attributable to NHMRC CEO, Professor Steve Wesselingh:

• “Partnership Projects create new opportunities for researchers and policy makers to collaborate together to define research questions, undertake research, interpret the findings and implement the findings into policy and practice.
• “Projects funded today demonstrate the power of collaboration and the potential this has in leading to better research outcomes – congratulations to all successful lead investigators and their teams.”

Quotes attributable to Professor Bowen:

• “Our program builds on years of community-led Healthy Skin work across remote and urban WA, strengthening Aboriginal voices in shaping care that is culturally grounded, accessible, and focused on prevention and wellbeing.
• “Locating the project at WA’s only children’s hospital ensures families from across the state can access an Aboriginal Health Practitioner-led model of care, placing Aboriginal leadership and strengths at the heart of skin health for all children, and ensuring skin health needs are addressed during the admission.
• "Our team is incredibly proud to be working with and walking alongside Aboriginal researchers, practitioners, Elders, children and families to prevent the downstream consequences of poor skin health, such as rheumatic fever, kidney disease and sepsis.
• "Importantly, this funding will strengthen and support Aboriginal leadership of skin health initiatives."

Quotes attributable to Professor Reibel:

• “We will work collaboratively with our partner organisations to co-design health service change strategies to develop a culturally safe maternity and infant and child health care environment, and evaluate the outcomes for Aboriginal women and their families in the WA South Metropolitan Health Service region.
• “The study will impact 800 plus Aboriginal families annually who use the regions health care system, and all regional maternity and child health care staff providing care to Aboriginal women and infants.”