Prevention Works

In this episode, Professor Steve Allender, Professor of Public Health and Founding Director, The Global Obesity Centre (GLOBE), Deakin University, discusses how systems thinking can help solve complex problems at the community level. This approach values community-led research that builds capacity, and where power is equally shared between researchers and communities to make change and help improve the health of the community.

Join Prevention Centre Senior Research Fellow, Dr Melanie Pescud and Senior Systems Engineer, Matthew Vella as they go back to basics to discuss the fundamentals of systems thinking across their respective disciplines of public health and engineering. They reveal similarities and differences in perspectives and share lessons learnt and next steps for systems thinking in chronic disease prevention research.

The Prevention Centre's Co-Director Professor Andrew Wilson chats about his years of experience in public health, the current health crisis, and what the future holds for the prevention of chronic disease in Australia.

Our guest for this episode is Dr Nick Watts, a population health and public policy expert in health and climate change. This conversation is one of the many we need, to raise public consciousness. We are in a climate and a health emergency and the Prevention Centre needs to be at the forefront of evidence-based solutions around chronic disease and sustainable development.

What is hate? Is there an antidote? Join us for a critically reflective conversation about hate and how to redress it with Professor Sandro Galea - considered one of the most important and innovative voices in American health and medicine.

Traditionally science is based on the idea that if you work out the causes of a problem, you know how to solve it. But this reductionist view won't work for complex problems. Professor Diane Finegood discusses why we need a more integrative approach to produce the kind of evidence we need.

This episode we're talking about scaling up. That's where you take a program that's worked and bring it to larger populations - a challenge for policy makers all over the world. Why do we struggle with scaling up? Why isn't it consistently handled, why do so many promising projects that could be scaled up die on the vine, and, of course, what can we do to fix it?

Prevention Works visits Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Sydney to meet with Professor Fiona Blyth, who is leading a study into the prevention of chronic pain for the Prevention Centre. Listen to Fiona explain the difference between acute and chronic pain, the massive scale of the problem in Australia, and why primary care is key.

The Cancer Council is the only cancer charity that works across all cancer types and in several ways, from prevention to research, from support to advocacy. Now they're bringing that expertise to bear at the Prevention Centre, partnering with us to reduce the number of deaths from cancer in Australia. In this episode, host Gretchen Miller chats to CEO of Cancer Council Australia, Professor Sanchia Aranda.

Dr Chris Nolan used to see all his pregnant mothers with diabetes in a morning. Now, he's swamped. He joins Louise Freebairn to discuss why so many pregnant women are presenting with this dangerous condition, and how dynamic simulation modelling is providing some answers on how to intervene in the ACT.