Dr Marita Lynagh

Biography

Dr Marita Lynagh is a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Health Behaviour Science, School of Medicine & Public Health.. Over a period of 15 years, Marita has developed and taught innovative curriculum in departments of Nursing, Health Sciences, Education and Medicine in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. She has a special interest in teaching personal development and health education for teachers, epidemiological aspects of public health and health promotion for undergraduates in health professions, and communication skills in medicine. Marita completed her PhD from the University of Newcastle in 2004 after gaining a Graduate Diploma in Health Promotion in 1993. Prior to this she was awarded a Joint Honours degree in Psychology and HMS in 1987 and a Bachelor of Human Movement Science in 1986 from the University of Queensland. As a health behaviour scientist, Marita’s broad research interests include health behaviour change strategies particularly incentive-based interventions, physical activity promotion, alcohol-harm reduction, tobacco control and assessment of unmet needs of haematological cancer survivors and their support persons. In 2007, Marita was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support for the Faculty of Health and the overall Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support. Marita has published 15 papers in peer reviewed journals (10 as first author) and presented her work at national and international conferences including the 11th International Congress of Behavioural Medicine at Washington DC, USA in August 2010. Marita is currently supervising two full time PhD students and has previously supervised a number of students in Masters in Health Promotion, Psychology Honours and PRC Summer Scholarship Programs. In 2010, Marita undertook a 6 months Special Studies Program as a Honorary Research Fellow at the Hood Centre for Children & Families, Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire USA.

Qualifications

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

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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.

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.

Fields of Research

Code	Description	Percentage
111700	Public Health And Health Services	50
130199	Education Systems Not Elsewhere Classified	25
111299	Oncology And Carcinogenesis Not Elsewhere Classified	25

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Hunter Medical Research Institute
• PRC - Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour

Group

• Hunter Medical Research Institute - Public Health

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

Visiting Professor Hood Centre for Children and Families, Dartmouth Medical School (United States)	01/07/2010 - 01/12/2010
Honorary Research Fellow Department of Population Health Services, University of Wisconsin (United States)	01/07/2010 - 01/08/2010

Awards

Recognition.

2012	Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) (Australia) Nomionated for a national award for recognition of outstanding contribution to student learning and fostering confidence and competence in pre-service teachers to teach and manage sensitive and controversial issues in schools.
2011	Vice Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning University of Newcastle (Australia) For outstanding contribution to student learning and fostering confidence and competence in pre-service teachers to teach and manage sensitive and controversial issues in schools.
2007	Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support University of Newcastle (Australia) University-wide award for recognition of teaching excellence. Only 1 award made each year.
2007	Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and Learning Support in the Faculty of Health University of Newcastle (Australia) Award given for recognition of teaching excellence in Faculty of Health.

Research Award.

1996	Postgraduate Research Scholarship University of Newcastle (Australia) Postgraduate scholarship to undertake PhD studies
1992	Postgraduate Research Scholarship in Community Development/Cancer Control University of Newcastle (Australia) Scholarship offered to undertake PhD studies

Invitations

Evidence-based Public Health Full-day Workshop. University of New Hampshire, United States (Invited Presenter)	2010
Why not pay women to quit smoking in pregnancy? Norris Cotton Cancer Centre, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre, United States (Invited Presenter)	2010

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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.

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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.