Staff Profile

Career Summary

Biography

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Newcastle, 05/03/2004
• Bachelor of Psychology (Honours), University of Queensland
• Graduate Diploma of Social Health Sc (Hlth Prom), University of Newcastle, 01/05/1993
• Bachelor of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland

Research

Research keywords

• alcohol and harm minimisation
• child and adolescent health
• financial incentives
• heallth behaviour
• health promotion
• medical education
• obesity and physical activity
• school health

Research expertise

Dr Lynagh completed her Phd in Behaviour Science in relation to Medicine on an Evaluation of a health promoting schools approach to reduce sun exposure, smoking and unsafe alcohol use in secondary school-age students in 2004. The Phd project utilised a randomised controlled trial study design involving 6 secondary state schools from the Hunter Region with half the schools implementing a health promoting schools intervention program over 2 years. Marita was responsible for overall project management of the study, including ethics approvals, protocol writing, development of intervention materials and measurement tools, data collection and analysis, and implementation of the program in three schools simultaneously. This experience enabled Marita to not only develop skills in rigourous research methodology and project management, but also important liaison and communication skills with school principals and gate-keepers which are applicable and transferable to other health-related research settings.

Since her Phd, Dr Lynagh has collaborated with local, national and international researchers on a number of other research projects in the public health, health behaviour and health education research areas.

Some key areas of interest and current research activity include:

• Evaluating the effectiveness of financial Incentives to encourage health behaviour change. Dr Lynagh is currently undertaking a feasibility trial, funded by the National Heart Foundation, on the use of financial incentives to encourage pregnant smokers to quit smoking.
• Identifying the unmet needs of haematological cancer patients and their support persons and understanding their adherence to medication. Dr Lynagh is colloborating with a group of her colleagues from the Priority Research Centre in Health Behaviour on a large, national-wide study on haematological cancer survivors funded by Cancer Australia and beyond blue.
• Collaborating with researchers from the Hood Center for Children and Families, Dartmouth Medical School (USA) on a longitudinal study on the influence of cross-promotional food marketing on pre-schoolers' dietary intake funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA.

Fields of Research

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

• Member - Public Health Australia Association
• Member - ACHPER Australian Council for Health and Physical Education

National & International Standards Committees.

• UMAT Technical Sub-Committee

Other

• Fellow - NUSport Board
• Member - Faculty Research and Ethics Committee

Appointments

Awards

Recognition.

Research Award.

Invitations

Collaboration

Marita's primary research collaboration is with colleagues from the Priority Research Centre in Health Behaviour on several current research projects. Marita is also currently collaborating with a team of researchers from the Hood Center for Children and Families, Dartmouth Medical School, USA on a large NIH funded project.

Administrative

Administrative expertise

Dr Lynagh is a peer reviewer for the Faculty of Health HREC ethics applications and is frequently invited to review manuscripts for consideration of publication in journals such as BMC Public Health, Medical Education and Health Education and Research.

From 2008 to 2010, Marita served as a Board Director on NUSport and currently serves on the Discipline Management Committee and the JMP Admissions Committee. Dr Lynagh is also the University of Newcastle representative on the National UMAT Technical Sub-Committee.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• communication skills
• epidemiology
• health education
• health promotion
• personal development
• population health
• sexuality education

Teaching expertise

Dr Lynagh has many years of experience teaching and coordinating both undergraduate and postgraduate course in public health, health promotion, health education and communication skills. Marita teaches into a range of courses across both faculties of Health and Education.

She currently co-ordinates and teaches courses in: drug education and road safety education for pre-service teachers; teaching and managing sensitive issues in the classroom, such as sexuality, mental health, child protection and grief and loss for pre-service primary and secondary school teachers; introduction to public health and epidemiology for health professional students; and communcation and interactional skills for Medicine students.

Dr Lynagh has also developed and written many of the above courses from their beginnings and continues to update and improve course content and delivery methods.

in 2007 Dr Lynagh received both the Faculty of Health Vice-Chancelor's Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support and the University of Newcastle Vice-Chancelor's Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support. In 2011, Marita was awarded a Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and in 2012 was nominated for an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.