What is this study all about?
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Introduced to practice settings in 2014, the Population Health Information Management System (PHIMS) is an electronic monitoring system that was specifically designed by the NSW Ministry of Health to support the implementation of the largest ever scale-up of school and child care-based obesity prevention programs in Australia.
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In these programs, health promotion practitioners are commissioned with the important task of supporting schools and child care services in their area to make specific, evidence-based practice changes aimed at improving nutrition and physical activity for children in those settings.
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During 2017, we conducted a multi-site ethnographic case study to investigate how PHIMS is being used across NSW by health promotion practitioners, state -level managers and administrators, working on two flagship programs of the Healthy Children Initiative (HCI), Live Life Well @ School and Munch & Move.
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NSW Health has inbuilt, ongoing mechanisms to track the HCI and adjust PHIMS as needed over time. This project has been designed as a once- off opportunity to look behind the scenes in more depth at the systems of practice that lie beneath the data that is currently reflected in PHIMS.
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02.
our PEOPLE
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Our partners
This work was undertaken in 2016 as a partnership developed between members of at the University of Sydney (with The Australian Partnership Prevention Centre), the Office of Preventive Health, the Local Health Districts, and the NSW Ministry of Health.
Chief Investigator
Penny Hawe
Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Uni Sydney & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
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Penny started out as a health promotion practitioner in NSW in the 1970s. Her interest in evaluation - in being able to show that health promotion is effective - meant that she ended up becoming a researcher. She had 10 years in Canada from 2000 as the Markin Chair in Health and Society at the University of Calgary. She is now Professor of Public Health at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney and a member of the Leadership Group of The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre.
Penny’s main interest is in complex, system-level interventions to promote health and in how to communicate our field to the public.
Contact Penny:
Co-ordinating Investigator
Katie Conte
Research Fellow, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Uni Sydney & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
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Dr Conte is a Research Fellow with The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and is based at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney. Her research aims to promote the importance of contextual knowledge, experience and practice in public health.
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Her strength lies in adapting evidence-based programs to meet local needs and she has worked with a variety of organisations throughout the US and India, including American Indian tribes, Department of Corrections, rural communities and faith-based organisations.
Contact Katie:
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Telephone: (02) 8627 4649
Co-Investigators:
Victoria Loblay
Research Fellow, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Uni Sydney & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
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Victoria Loblay has worked in anthropology in Australia, the USA, and in India. When she was studying at Chicago, she developed an interest in feminist cultural history and reproductive rights in South Asia. For her PhD research she conducted fieldwork in Australia and India, examining conceptions of gender in relation to public discourse on the issue of sex-selection in both places. Her areas of expertise include medical anthropology, women’s health activism and the intersection of gender and bioethics in health care settings.
Sisse Groen
Senior Research Fellow of RMIT University, School of Property Construction & Project Management, RMIT University
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Sisse Gron joined us in Year 2 from Denmark, where she had a long experience in the field of health promotion research and occupational health and safety, including some ground-breaking work in participatory action research with Danish bus drivers. Her area of expertise includes participative qualitative methods, ethnography, interventions and policy instruments. She now holds a position at RMIT, but still contributes to the project through her role as a affiliated researcher through the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at Uni Sydney..
Our Partners:
Our Partners:
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This work was undertaken in 2016 as a partnership developed between members of at the University of Sydney (with The Australian Partnership Prevention Centre), the Office of Preventive Health, the Local Health Districts, and the NSW Ministry of Health.
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Amanda Green, State Program Manager - Munch & Move | NSW Office of Preventive Health
Christine Innes-Hughes, Manager, NSW Healthy Children’s Initiative, Office of Preventive Health
Dr Andrew Milat, Associate Director, Evidence and Evaluation, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Lina Persson, Director, Population Health Intelligence Systems, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Mandy Williams, Director | Health Promotion Service, South Western Sydney Local Health District
Sarah Thackway, Executive Director, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Dr Jo Mitchell, Executive Director | Centre for Population Health
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Research Assistants:
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This work was undertaken in 2016 as a partnership developed between members of at the University of Sydney (with The Australian Partnership Prevention Centre), the Office of Preventive Health, the Local Health Districts, and the NSW Ministry of Health.
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Amanda Green, State Program Manager - Munch & Move | NSW Office of Preventive Health
Christine Innes-Hughes, Manager, NSW Healthy Children’s Initiative, Office of Preventive Health
Dr Andrew Milat, Associate Director, Evidence and Evaluation, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Lina Persson, Director, Population Health Intelligence Systems, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Mandy Williams, Director | Health Promotion Service, South Western Sydney Local Health District
Sarah Thackway, Executive Director, Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
Dr Jo Mitchell, Executive Director | Centre for Population Health
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Eileen Goldberg
Research Assistant, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Uni Sydney & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
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Eileen Goldberg is currently undertaking a post-graduate student internship with The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and is based at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney. She holds a Masters of Public Health from the University of Sydney, a Graduate Certificate in Public Relations and a BA Communications (Journalism) from the University of Technology, Sydney.
Eileen's research interests are in developing health prevention systems through intersecting policy, research and practice. Using mixed methods (though with a heavy emphasis on qualitative methods), she is particularly interested in program implementation issues, specifically adaptations to improve the uptake and use of interventions. She brings experience in effective organisational communication to her work. Eileen has been part of the Implementation Cluster at The Australian Partnership Research Centre (TAPPC) since mid-2107.
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Leah Marks
Research Assistant, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Uni Sydney & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
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Leah Marks is a Research Assistant with The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and is based at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney. She holds a Masters of Public Health and Bachelor of Health Sciences from the University of Sydney.
Leah works across a range of research projects in Public Health, and is passionate about research that focuses on improving health and wellbeing and reduces inequalities. Her research interests lie in the prevention of Chronic disease, health communication and health Inequality, with emphasis on the social determinants of health and systems thinking.
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Abeera Shahid, Student internship, McMasters University
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Our WORK
