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Dr Billie Bonevski joins CHeRP

Joining the CHeRP team February 2008, Billie Bonevski brings with her a wealth of public health research experience. A qualified behavioural scientist, Billie's past research activities have included, the development and evaluation of programs to increase rates of preventive care in general practice, the development and application of surveys to assess the supportive care needs of people with cancer, research aiming to improve the quality of health service delivery and the promotion of evidence based medicine and most recently working with a web based media monitoring program aimed at improving the quality of health news reporting.

While with CHeRP Billie's primary responsibility will be continuing CHeRP's high standard research activities in sun protection and tobacco control. "CHeRP has an excellent, internationally recognised reputation of high quality research in these areas. I am looking forward to helping maintain those high standards and making a difference in the community with regards to cancer control".

Dr Claire Johnson awarded her PhD for Palliative Care Research

CHeRP researcher Claire Johnson was awarded her PhD in 2007 for researching practices relating to the referral of patients with advanced cancer to specialist palliative care services. Her thesis, titled ‘Palliative care in Australia: Perceptions and practices of cancer specialists and general practitioners’, examined medical practitioner beliefs about palliative care and their practices in relation to referring their patients with advanced cancer to specialist palliative care services. It is the first time this issue has been formally investigated at a national level. Claire found that there is a need to improve all doctors’ skills and knowledge in providing a palliative approach to care to facilitate the care of people with less complex needs by generalist and primary health professionals. Improving communication about end-of-life issues may encourage appropriate and timely referral to specialist palliative care services, where these are warranted. Claire is currently working on adapting the health professional version of the national guidelines for needs-based palliative care for use by consumers.

CHeRP researchers were awarded three of the six NSW National Health and Medical Research Council palliative care grants announced by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Brett Mason

Afaf Girgis will develop a consumer toolkit including information about specialist palliative care services as well as a self-assessment tool for patients and their caregivers to identify any unmet needs that they may have. Claire Johnson and Amy Waller will further explore the palliative care self-assessment tool, particularly ways to communicate these unmet needs to their health care team, so that improvements can occur.

The grants are part of 10 research grants and 12 researcher support awards across Australia.

Increasing children's participation in sport

Newcastle University Sport (NUsport) and The Cancer Council NSW, is determining if getting children to participate in a vacation sports camp leads to an increase in children's sport involvement after the camp has finished.

Rates of childhood obesity are increasing, with approximately 25% of NSW children overweight or obese (NSW Health). Exercise is an important part of maintaining a healthy weight but there is little understanding of the best ways to encourage children to participate in sporting groups outside of school hours.

Families who enroll in a NUsport Vacation Sports Camp are being invited to participate in this project. Children who attend camp on randomly chosen days will undertake additional activities and be given written resources as part of a take-home package. The remaining days will continue exactly as they would normally be run.

The project is supported by funding from the Hunter Medical Research Institute and NUsport and is being conducted by CHeRP researchers Dr Chris Paul and Dr Erica James.

For more information please contact Dr Erica James: Erica.James@newcastle.edu.au

New CHeRP Senior Staff member to help build research in physical activity and nutrition

Dr Erica James joined the CHeRP team in January 2007 as a Senior Research Academic with a special focus on physical activity and nutrition. Prior to joining CHeRP, Erica was Senior Lecturer in Public Health Research in the School of Public Health at La Trobe University. With a background in exercise physiology and public health epidemiology she is ideally placed to help consolidate CHeRP's research activity in the prevention portfolio and to build up nutrition and physical activity related research in the survivorship portfolio. "CHeRP has a strong reputation in both survivorship and prevention research, especially in tobacco and sun protection. I am really excited to be joining the CHeRP team and looking forward to helping increase CHeRP research in physical activity and nutrition."

Erica's first task at CHeRP is to undertake a scoping exercise to guide an evidence informed process to decide CHeRP's key areas of focus related to physical activity and nutrition. She sees this as a challenging process of trying to balance the priorities of policy makers and practitioners, gaps identified in the published research in this area, the politics of research funding and the pragmatics of data availability. "We really want to make some strategic decisions about CHeRP's focus so that we can complement, not duplicate, existing research activity."

Dr Chris Paul received research grant at the HMRI awards night in November 2006

CHeRP Research Academic Dr Chris Paul, along with Dr John Wiggers from Hunter New England Population Health, has received funding to follow-up non-participants to a smoking cessation intervention trial. The Proactive Telemarketing Smoking Cessation Study is a trial which identified smokers in the community through unsolicited telephone contact and offers them an intensive proactive telephone counselling service. As many smokers are reluctant to participate in such formal intervention trials, this study represents a tremendous opportunity for long term follow-up of non-participating smokers.

Long-term longitudinal follow-up of these smokers can provide information on non-participants' quit intentions, their perceptions of available forms of smoking cessation assistance and their approaches to quitting. It can also provide crucial data on their position on the quitting continuum, hard-core smoking status and predictors of continued smoking. These findings will have important implications for improving the reach and effectiveness of existing cessation strategies such as mass media campaigns and the Quitline, as well as help to inform the development of the National Tobacco Strategy.

Dr Paul and colleagues will complete the four month follow-up data collection for this study in late 2007 with a 13 month follow-up to be completed in mid 2008.

Dr Catherine Whiteman awarded Doctorate of Clinical Psychology

Dr Catherine Whiteman was recently awarded her Doctorate of Clinical Psychology with the acceptance of her research thesis entitled 'Prevalence and associated factors of anxiety and depression among long-term cancer survivors, 5 years post-diagnosis'. Her research found that anxiety and depression were reported at significantly higher prevalence rates among cancer survivors compared to the general population, yet ony 2% of the study sample had accessed psychological support in the past 6 months. She recommended that screening processes be implemented to provide early assistance to all cancer survivors, particularly those with the associated risk factors of a history of psychiatric problems, poor perceived social support and poor coping style.

Cathy is among the first group of students to receive the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology at Newcastle University, and will be graduating in October 2006. She is currently working as a Clinical Psychologist at a Sexual Assault Service.

Claire Johnson presents at the 4th European Association for Palliative Care Research Forum

CHeRP PhD student Claire Johnson recently attended the 4th European Association for Palliative Care Research Forum and found it provided her with a unique opportunity to hear and see what is happening in the field of palliative care around the world. One of about twenty delegates from Australia, Claire reported that Australia is performing well in relation to research quality compared to most European countries. CHeRP had three presentations at the Forum: an oral and a poster presentation by Claire about her work involving doctors' perceptions and referral practices, and a poster about the Palliative Care Needs Assessment program of work. The work of CHeRP was recognised, praised and encouraged by delegates.

The conference provided a balanced and interesting cross section of research from biomedicine and clinical care through to bioethics, palliative care delivery, policy and politics. The forum also gave Claire the opportunity to meet with people from research groups that are conducting similar work overseas. Input from these sources has opened avenues for continuing dialogue and collaboration.

Claire's presentation is profiled on the European Association for Palliative Care's website publication 'EAPC Congress Highlights'. Please click on this link to read.

Professor Afaf Girgis at the 2nd ASCO Oncology Communication Workshop in Baltimore

Professor Afaf Girgis attended the second American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Communication Workshop in April 2006 where she joined an international faculty of presenters and facilitators. The aim of the workshop was to improve communication skills of participating oncologists, with trainees practising their learned skills with simulated patients and receiving feedback, in small group settings. The only member of the faculty from Australia, Afaf delivered a presentation on "breaking bad news", an area of cancer care in which CHeRP pioneered the development of guidelines over a decade ago.

Afaf was also involved in discussions with ASCO representatives regarding how communication skills training for oncology clinicians could be delivered and funded for larger audiences of doctors. Australia is seen as one of the world leaders in communication skills training and there was strong enthusiasm from ASCO to continue our collaborations in this important area. Afaf is currently part of a team working with the National Breast Cancer Centre (NBCC), which is committed to national delivery of communication skills training, to develop and deliver a Train-the-Trainer program for future facilitators of such training programs. The NBCC has also commissioned Afaf to update their Breaking Bad News training module.

Afaf is photographed with members of the faculty: from the USA - Lidia Schapira, Tony Black, Paula Rieger, Joseph Weiner, David Spiegel (not pictured); from Canada - Robert Buckman (not pictured); and from the UK - Denis Talbot.