Centre of Research Excellence: Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health

The current generation of 10- to 24-year-olds is the largest ever. They face unprecedented shifts in their health, growth, and development. However, policies and services have lagged far behind. Health investments have been minimal and adolescents have had relatively few gains in recent decades. A lack of research and technical capacity is a major reason for this failure. The CRE: Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health will provide the knowledge to scale up investment and establish Australia as a global research leader.

We will focus globally on the major adolescent mental and physical health problems that have been most neglected in research, and nationally on adolescents facing the greatest disadvantage. Our CRE will drive a cycle of accountability in adolescent health, with the aim of providing government stakeholders with the evidence for effective decision-making.

Specifically, we will:

1. Make use of existing, underutilised data resources to delineate variations in health need, health risks and service utilisation geographically and across different adolescent groups;
2. Characterise the gaps in existing surveillance systems, across areas of health and adolescent groups, and identify scalable strategies to fill those gaps; and
3. Use existing data and evidence resources to model optimal policy and programming investments.

We will build the Australian research workforce, including the training of 6 early career researchers and 7 PhD students across the CRE. We will extend engagement with leading groups involved in surveillance, policy and programming for adolescent health using innovative approaches including MOOCs and a youth network. We will create a new national research network, one that builds on a foundation of previous collaborations. The work will place Australian researchers at the leading edge of a rapidly emerging global field. Ultimately it will catalyse more integrated and equitable investments in adolescent health nationally, regionally and globally within the next 5 years.

Investigators

• CIA Prof George PATTON, University of Melbourne
• CIB Prof Susan SAWYER. University of Melbourne
• CIC Prof Stuart KINNER, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
• CID Dr Peter AZZOPARDI, Burnet Institute
• CIE Prof Louisa DEGENHARDT, University of New South Wales
• CIF A/Prof Nicola REAVLEY, University of Melbourne
• CIG Prof Rebecca IVERS, University of New South Wales
• CIH Dr Holly ERSKINE, University of Queensland
• CII Prof Alex BROWN, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
• CIJ Dr Nick SCOTT, Burnet Institute

Funded by
APP1171981, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence, commencing 2019

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