Our consultants have presented and published work across a range of social and public health topics, including, for example, tobacco control, cancer prevention, food-labelling, taxation, welfare, financial literacy, road safety, asthma management, obesity, electoral matters and the prescription of blood. We have significant communications experience, including developmental and concept testing research in relation to several high profile national and state campaigns.
Below, short descriptions of a small selection of projects are provided as an illustration of our experience. Links to publically available reports are included.
Food labelling
Since 2008, our staff have worked in partnership with the Cancer Council NSW and the University of Sydney on a series of projects relating to consumers’ understanding of food labels, nutrients and energy. The results of an intercept survey with shoppers, designed to test the efficacy of different front-of-pack labelling systems, were published in Health Promotion International and formed input to the Australian review of food labelling law and policy. Two subsequent phases of research have been conducted more recently, and are being prepared for publication.
http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/2/120.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=NuzrL65fyh799Qt
Smoking and health survey
This survey, which has been conducted on behalf of the Cancer Institute NSW five times since 2005, forms part of the evaluation of the tobacco control program in relation to the NSW Cancer Plan. Over successive years, Jenny Crawford was the lead research consultant engaged to work on this project. The survey provides an opportunity to collect evidence about community attitudes on smoking and topical tobacco control issues to inform policy and program development.
http://www.cancerinstitute.org.au/media/25329/2009-11_nsw_smoking_and_health_survey_2009.pdf
Lifestyle and cancer survey
Similarly, the Cancer Institute NSW has conducted a biennial survey to measure community behaviours, intentions, knowledge and attitudes in regards to a range of lifestyle factors that represent a risk for cancer. Jennifer Crawford is an author on the resulting publications.
http://www.cancerinstitute.org.au/media/135026/cancer-and-lifestyle-factors.pdf
National skin cancer awareness campaign
In 2006, our staff worked on a large qualitative research project to inform the development of the National Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign. Based on the findings from this formative research, a number of advertising concepts was developed and then tested in further research. Jenny Crawford presented the results of this concept testing research to ministers and advisers at Parliament House.
Jenny then managed quantitative research which was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this campaign, both with its primary audience (13-17 year olds) and parents. The research identified significant improvements in the knowledge and behaviour of the campaign target audiences, while also highlighting areas which still needed to be addressed to improve sun protection attitudes and behaviours.
The developmental research report, and the first campaign evaluation report, can be accessed via the following links:
http://www.skincancer.gov.au/internet/skincancer/publishing.nsf/Content/00FBD1CBB4E80703CA25766D001531A0/$File/dev.pdf
http://www.skincancer.gov.au/internet/skincancer/publishing.nsf/Content/A16A9E45E11EA188CA25766D001531A1/$File/eval08.pdf
Public health value of disclosing cigarette ingredients
In 2008, on behalf of the Department of Health and Ageing, our staff worked on qualitative research designed to assess the effectiveness of the current disclosure of cigarette ingredient and emission data by determining the public health value of disclosing this type of information. Group discussions and depth interviews were conducted with smokers and non-smokers, and interviews were conducted with 33 tobacco control experts and stakeholders. The report can be found at the following link:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/phd-tobacco-phv-cig-ing-em-data