This year’s WHO World Heath Day theme is ‘My health, my right’ looking at the equity and access to health care around the world.
La Trobe University experts are available to discuss health equity in Australia and globally, and how we can improve clinical practice and social wellbeing, achieve equity and inclusion, and promote wellbeing across the lifespan.
Professor Jane Mills
Pro Vice Chancellor Health Innovation and Dean, La Trobe Rural Health School
Expertise: clinical nursing, rural and regional health, rural workforce, strengthening health systems
Contact: 0409 762 200
Comments:
“Ensuring excellent access to affordable healthcare in rural Australia is reliant on a highly skilled comprehensive rural health workforce. Investing in our early career clinicians across the full spectrum of professions requires additional attention from governments and policy makers. We don’t know enough about Australia’s health workforce to make evidence-based decisions about how to retain new graduates through their challenging first years of practice. This has to change for Australia to fully realise the investment made in undergraduate education.”
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Dr Hanan Khalil
Associate Professor Health Practice and Management
Expertise: Health services management, Health services research, public health education and research
Contact: h.khalil@latrobe.edu.au
Comments:
“I am currently working on evaluating palliative care models of delivery for rural clients in a bit to improve care access and delivery in rural areas through recommendations. I am working with local aged care facilities in Mildura to address the gaps identified in managing palliative care residents in aged care. We have undertaken several interviews with staff and audited residents’ notes and working to address these gaps and educate staff to ensure timely management of residents.”
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Dr Virginia Dickson-Swift
Principal Research Fellow – Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research
Virginia is a Senior Research Fellow in the Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research (VVMCRHR) based at the La Trobe Rural Health School. A public health researcher she has over 20 years’ experience working in rural communities. Virginia currently leads a stream of research in the VVMCRHR focused on improving oral health outcomes for rural people.
Expertise: public health, oral health, rural health
Contact: 0409 230 013
Comments:
“Oral health is part of general health but is often neglected. There are many people in our rural communities who face inequity in oral health, such as access to services but also to infrastructure (like water fluoridation) that is vital to promoting oral health. Rural people face inequity in many forms and a lot of oral disease can be prevented but our rights to good oral health are compromised due to where we live. In some of our rural towns we see dental decay in children’s teeth (which is preventable) at much higher rates than in cities.”
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Dr Kathleen Brasher
Research Fellow at the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research
Contact: 0413 200 775, k.brasher@latrobe.edu.au
Recent research: Older people at forefront of framework, News, La Trobe University
Comments:
“Everyone should have the right to health care and living environments that helps us to maintain or improve our health as we age. The John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research has been working with a consortium of six rural health services across northeast Victoria to build a rural-specific approach to integrated care. The Indigo 4Ms tools were co-designed by older people and health workers to ensure older people in rural communities have access to age-friendly health care.”