Spotlight on 2023 EMCR Awardees
There were 28 recipients in 2023 WHRTN EMCR Funded Awards. Here we spotlight the following six awardees and their projects, A/Prof Zohra Lassi, A/Prof Gemma Sharp, Dr Same Teague, Dr Asvini Subasinghe, Dr Karen Tuesley and Dr Laura Whitburn.,
Associate Professor Zohra Lassi
Epidemiologist, affiliated with Health Translation South Australia, Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide.
Identifying interventions to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health & nutrition (RMNCAH&N) in disadvantaged settings.
“This opportunity will complement my goal of refining my expertise in qualitative methodologies. It will facilitate engaging with diverse communities to understand their unique perspectives, leading to a broadened research portfolio characterised by authoritative contributions and senior authorship.”
Sexual health, often overlooked, is the key to pleasurable and safe experiences without coercion, discrimination, and violence. However, it has often been narrowly viewed as a set of isolated health concerns, overlooking its profound impact on an individual's overall well-being, life satisfaction, and happiness. Existing efforts mainly focus on negative outcomes like STIs, unintended pregnancies, and violence. Cultural sensitivities also make accessing sexual health care harder for them.
These challenges stem from factors like economic difficulties, language barriers, social exclusion, and discrimination based on ethnicity, race, and nationality, as well as cultural, religious, and political sensitivities that can stigmatise their needs. Limited English proficiency often excludes them from studies on women's health disparities. Despite sexual and reproductive health being crucial for migrant and refugee women, there's a gap in the current literature.
Our research aims to fill these gaps by exploring the experiences and preferences of migrant and refugee women regarding sexual health and integrating healthcare provider perspectives. This will provide valuable insights for developing sustainable and culturally sensitive interventions and policies to reduce sexual health disparities among migrants. This approach offers valuable insights to co-design culturally sensitive interventions and policies, reducing sexual health disparities among migrants.
Associate Professor Gemma Sharp
Senior Clinical Psychologist and Research Lead at the new Statewide Women's Mental Health Service, a collaboration between Alfred Health and Ramsay Health Care
Understanding the causes of and developing novel treatments for body image related disorders, particularly eating disorders.
“ I am particularly passionate about increasing access to ED treatment for women in middle and older ages and personalising this treatment to suit their life stage. Everyone deserves the opportunity to recover from an ED! This passion project will place me and my research/clinical teams as pioneers in innovations in women’s mental health, particularly EDs.“
Women are at particularly high risk of eating disorders (EDs) in the lead up and during menopause. The prevalence of EDs for women in mid-life is 3.5%. Nevertheless, ED treatment services are almost always oriented towards adolescents and young adults. Thus, many women do not feel comfortable seeking treatment for EDs at this crucial time, which can lead to fatal consequences. Thus, the aim of my proposed research is to design a new ED psychological support program which specifically addresses and caters for women in menopause so they can get the assistance they need in an environment where they feel comfortable.
The project involves four stages with women with a lived experience of an ED combined with menopause. In the earlier stages, we will explore via focus groups the issues with currently available treatment programs when it comes to the unique challenges of menopause and devise ideas for how to address these treatment gaps. Then, a pilot program will be designed with the lived experience women and their feedback sought on this program. Ultimately, this research could lead to more women seeking and receiving support for eating concerns in a time in their life when they need it the most.
Dr Sam Teague
Affiliated with the Tropical Australian Academic Health Centre, is a Lecturer at James Cook University's Department of Psychology in Townsville, North Queensland
Research methods and applications of digital mental health support in the perinatal period and early years.
“The project will help develop my skills in micro longitudinal designs– a research methodology requiring rare, high-quality repeated-assessment data on maternal perinatal mental health. Such data is very difficult to collect without participant incentives, given its time-intensive nature.”
Maternal-fetal bonding, mental health, and social support: a micro longitudinal study
Maternal-fetal bonding is crucial for the health and wellbeing of both mothers and infants, with my research demonstrating associations with infant social and emotional development as well as maternal perinatal depression and anxiety (Le Bas et al., 2019; Le Bas et al., 2022; O’Dea et al., 2023). Social support is recognised as the most important predictor for the maternal-fetal bond and its subsequent downstream effects on infant development and maternal mental health (Ertmann et al., 2021; Hopkins et al., 2018).
However, research is lacking in providing nuanced insights into the nature, extent, and timing of social support in the antenatal period to bolster the maternal-fetal bond. This project aims to use a micro longitudinal design to explore the relationship between social support from partners, family, and friends and the maternal-fetal bond. Specifically, this project will examine (a) the types of social support and social connectedness that are most predictive of maternal-fetal bonding, and (b) whether variability in perceptions of social support and social connectedness are associated with variability in maternal-fetal bonding. This research will provide important insights into the development of early, preventative interventions to support both mothers and infants in establishing strong foundations for their health and wellbeing.
Dr Asvini Subasinghe
Dr Asvini Subasinghe, affiliated with Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre, is an emerging leader in sexual and reproductive health research, with a background in epidemiology.
Co-creating preconception health content for a personalised digital platform for women from priority populations.
“I will develop my capacity to apply as a chief investigator for future grants in this research area further supporting my future aspirations of becoming a leader in championing equity in sexual and reproductive health care.”
Women from migrant and refugee backgrounds have greater rates of gestational diabetes and poorer pregnancy outcomes, including maternal and infant mortality, compared to native born Australians. Women from Chinese, Indian, Sri Lankan and Middle-Eastern backgrounds are particularly at high risk of suboptimal pregnancy outcomes compared to women from English-speaking backgrounds. Poor knowledge and access to services are some factors related to poor pregnancy outcomes in these women.
Our team has shown women, from migrant and refugee backgrounds, would prefer receiving preconception information from digital resources. However, women noted they prefer a digital resource that is easy to navigate, and customised to meet their preferences. Delivering personalised preconception health information on an interactive digital platform may empower these women with the knowledge required to seek appropriate support for a safe and successful pregnancy.
Dr Karen Tuesley
Affiliated with Health Translation Queensland, is an epidemiologist and early career researcher at the School of Public Health, University of Queensland.
Exploring the characteristics and comorbidities of women who have had a hysterectomy and/or oophorectomy before 40 years of age.
“This grant will support me in making an original important contribution to our understanding of women’s health and chronic disease and will facilitate the development of my independent research program and my leadership and project management skills.”
In Australia, more than 27,000 women have a hysterectomy for benign conditions each year. Around 30% of these also have both ovaries removed (bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy; BSO). While the procedure has benefits, most studies indicate that women who have a hysterectomy when aged younger than 45 years can suffer long-term detrimental health effects. In fact, my recent study of over 660,000 Australian women, showed hysterectomy with ovarian conservation before 35 years was associated with a 50% increased rate of mortality from causes other than cancer or cardiovascular disease, increasing to 158% when BSO was also undertaken. The reasons for this increase are unclear but may relate to the socioeconomic and health characteristics of younger women who have hysterectomies.
My study aims to characterise Australian women who have had a hysterectomy (+/- BSO) before age 40, to assess how the pre-existing health (e.g., mental illness, intellectual disability, substance use) and gynaecological conditions in this group differ from women without hysterectomy or who have a hysterectomy at older ages. My study aims to ascertain whether there are disparities in gynaecological care for specific vulnerable groups of women. Understanding any differences will help target interventions to improve health outcomes for these women.
Dr Laura Whitburn
Affiliated with Melbourne Academic Centre for Health, started her career as a physiotherapist and is currently Senior Lecturer and acting Discipline Lead in Anatomy, in the School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment at La Trobe University.
Support the dissemination of research findings from a recent study aiming to enhance our understanding of women’s experiences of labour pain.
“Disseminating the findings of my research through publications and conference presentations is critical to both facilitating research translation and impact, as well as enhancing my career as an Early Career Researcher (ECR). My program of research aims to enhance women’s health and wellbeing during childbirth, by better understanding the complex experience of pain in labour.”
This grant will support the dissemination of research findings from a recent study aiming to enhance our understanding of women’s experiences of labour pain. Pain is a central feature of women’s childbirth experiences, and yet it is complex, multifaceted and highly individual. Due to a lack of appropriate measurement tools to capture this experience, our study aimed to develop a new multidimensional pain assessment tool for labour pain, suitable for clinical and research settings. Our findings have led to the refinement of the tool, in preparation for validation in a larger cohort study.
Our data have also allowed for the enhancement of a theoretical model developed during my doctorate, to understand how cognitive processes are associated with women’s experience of pain in labour (Whitburn et al. 2014), which provides important clues as to how support of women in labour can be enhanced. I will develop and submit two manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals to report these research findings, and aim to present findings at a national conference.
