Work & Study Opportunities

For future work keep an eye on here, the local press and University publications.

Possible subjects for Postgraduate Reseach Projects for 2012/13

If you are interested in any of these subjects please contact Professor Robert Adams on 82226042 or Dr Sarah Appleton on 82227349

Health Literacy: Health literacy is a core concept in the ability to understand health information, interpret what this means to the individual, create plans of action and communicate with relevant health professionals or others. Australia lags well behind other nations in examining this issue. We will 1) measure the impact of health literacy on health status, quality of life and health care costs; 2) determine if there are modifiable risk factors that influence health literacy in the Australian setting; 3) determine which current instrument, or derived instrument, best measures health literacy; 4) develop pilot interventions to improve health literacy in at-risk population sub-groups.

Health Services: Using the rich and complex biomedical population cohorts of NWAHS, FAMAS and WISH, along with Omnibus Study data, and in collaboration with the Discipline of Primary Care and GP datasets, we aim to investigate the burden of diagnosed and undiagnosed chronic disease, patterns and effectiveness of health service use, and gender-differences in these parameters. The influence of health literacy, structure of primary and tertiary care, and interaction within consultations will be studied to see if these are significant and modifiable influences on the social determinants of health.

Obesity: From the ARC-funded NOBLE study two target populations have been identified crucial to the obesity problem- baby boomers and young families. We have established a multi disciplinary team that will identify and investigate behaviour influencing the eating and exercise patterns, as well as biomedical risks of these groups using a high quality set of quantitative and qualitative data in home place and work place situations. The emphasis is upon using this understanding to identify key intervention points and providing policy makers with evidence and guidance for targeted interventions.

Musculoskeletal disease in the community: The Arthritis Subgroup of the North West Adelaide Health Study possesses unique Australian data on the prevalence of individual joint pain in this population-based cohort.

Sleep: As part of the NHMRC-funded MAILES (Men, Androgens, Inflammation, Lifestyle and Environment Study) we are examining the complex relationships between a number of variables that influence cardio-metabolic outcomes in men. One of these is sleep health, including sleep apnoea. We are conducting home sleep studies in 1,000 men from the NWAHS and FAMAS cohorts and will add this data to the rich bio-psycho-social data from these cohorts to examine the factors affecting cardiac and metabolic health in men.

Extending working life: Using our existing datasets in addition to panel data from other sources, we aim to examine in a comprehensive manner the bio-psychosocial factors that affect working life, in particular the interactions between variables that exist in the workplace, and those that exist relating to the individual functioning in the workplace.

 Key references

1.  Appleton SL, Ruffin RE, Wilson DH, Taylor AW, Adams RJ. The risk of cardiovascular disease associated with asthma may be mediated by short-acting β₂-agonists. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2009;123:124-130.
2. Adams RJ, Stocks N, Wilson DH, Hill CL, Gravier S, Kickbusch I, Beilby J. Health Literacy – A new concept for general practice? Aust Fam Phys 2009;38:144-147
3. Adams RJ, Tucker G, Hugo G, Hill CL, Wilson DH. Projected future trends of hospital service use for selected obesity-related conditions. Obes Res Clin Pract2008;2:133-141
4. Chapman IM, Visvanathan R, Hammond AJ, Morley JE, Field JB, Tai K, Belobrajdic DP, Chen RY, Horowitz M. Effect of testosterone and a nutritional supplement, alone and in combination, on hospital admissions in undernourished older men and women.Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Mar;89(3):880-9.
5. Hill CL, Gill T, Menz H, Taylor AW. The prevalence and associations of foot pain in a population-based cohort study J Foot Ankle Res 2008;1:2.