The University of Newcastle will lead a national research program aiming to transform Australia's health prevention system and reduce the chronic disease burden.
Awarded a $5 million National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant, the major project will focus on synergising existing efforts to prevent chronic disease in Australia - and in doing so seek to overcome the average 15 to 17-year lag it takes for health systems to adopt proven chronic disease interventions.
Based on a two-decade strong working model in the Hunter New England region of NSW, the program will inform the integration of research into prevention services across Australia. It will focus on preventing chronic disease by addressing two major chronic disease risk factors - nutrition and physical activity - within non-clinical settings including schools, childcare centres, sporting clubs and workplaces.
Lead investigator, University of Newcastle and Hunter New England Local Health District behavioural scientist Professor Luke Wolfenden, of HMRI's Population Health Research program, said few health crises had been as predictable as the crippling burden of chronic disease on health systems and communities.
"Chronic disease is the major contributor to health system costs. It's what filling up our hospitals and to address this issue we need to effectively implement programs that prevent the onset of chronic disease," Professor Wolfenden said.
"Past research investments have done an incredible job of finding solutions capable of reducing much of the chronic disease burden. However, the health system is often unable to adopt those solutions in a timely way."
Professor Wolfenden said only about 14 per cent of effective health programs or policies ever reached implementation.
"It takes on average about 17 years for those 14 per cent of programs to be adopted and delivered routinely in practice. This delay in implementation comes at a considerable cost to patients and the health system."
Professor Wolfenden said the national project would aim to identifythe barriers that exist to implementing the vast array of evidence-based health prevention programs, policies or procedures.
"We're not very good at prioritising which health interventions should be implemented or replacing interventions that no longer work, where more effective ones exist. In addition, prevention agencies often don't work synergistically."
For example, many schools implement a 'no hat, no play' policy to prevent children from sun exposure, which is a great cancer prevention initiative. But students without a hat for the day may be prevented from playing and accruing physical activity – another risk factor for cancer.
"So, often agencies are unconnected and the system is working in a very uncoordinated way. One of the things we're looking to achieve is to support greater coordination of prevention activity across Australia to make sure that we're working together to help people live better healthier lives."
The NHMRC-funded national project builds on a novel Learning Health System for Prevention (LHSP) established in the NSW Hunter New England area, which brings together researchers and health organisations to achieve rapid learning. They do this by undertaking research with and within health organisations as part of their 'usual business'.
"The Learning Health System brings the research and health system enterprises together. It supports health services to generate the research evidence they need to better implement evidence-based programs," he said.
Professor Wolfenden said the national project had the potential to greatly enhance the impact of health promotion services.
"The work that we've done locally in the Hunter suggests that applying this learning health system approach could halve the cost to health services of getting evidence-based programs implemented in community settings like schools or childcare services.
"We want to get the most effective interventions adopted as quickly as possible, and we want to make sure the prevention system is working in a coordinated, efficient way to help that occur.
"The dream would be that this project transforms the prevention system in Australia so that it's more effective, more efficient and more equitable. And ultimately that leads to substantive reductions in chronic disease amongst the community and alleviates the burden of chronic disease for the health system and society."
The NHMRC-funded project called Transformative synergies: Using Learning Health Systems for Chronic Disease Prevention, also involves teams from the University of Sydney, Deakin, and Monash.
HMRI is a partnership between the University of Newcastle, Hunter New England Health and the community.
