PHRP Awards recognise outstanding public health research with real-world impact
MEDIA RELEASE: 9 November 2023
A paper on the true cost of waiting times for cataract surgery in Australia and another on addressing the challenges health services must overcome to meet the needs of those seeking treatment for obesity have been honoured in this year’s PHRP Excellence Awards.
The awards celebrate outstanding papers that have been published in the past year in Public Health Research & Practice, a peer-reviewed journal of the Sax Institute that has been independently ranked Australia’s leading health policy journal.
This year’s Best Paper Award went to a team led by Dr Jessie Huang-Lung, a postdoctoral fellow at UNSW Sydney, for their paper on waiting times for cataract surgery in the public health system. The researchers found that in the best-case scenario, patients wait around four months for surgery after diagnosis of a cataract, but in the worst-case scenario, that wait can be as long as two-and-a-half years in some parts of the country.
Nearly one-quarter of a million people live in Australia with visually significant cataracts. The authors estimated that extended waits for treatment place people at heightened risk of falls, car crashes and other ill effects, including social isolation. Their analysis showed that cutting wait times from 12 to three months would result in 50,679 fewer falls for older people, saving the health system $6.6 million nationwide once the cost of bringing the surgery forward was taken into account.
“There will always be competing resources, but we need a dedicated pathway to get cataract surgery done because we know we know the procedure is both cost effective, and improves peoples’ quality of life significantly,” said the paper’s senior author, Professor Lisa Keay, who is Head of the School of Optometry and Vision Science at UNSW Sydney.
She added that the current state of affairs, with long delays before surgery in some parts of the country, “means people will have worse cataracts; their vision will be worse, and they will experience all the negative consequences”.
The paper generated significant interest in the mainstream and medical media, with articles on the research in The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald, among other outlets.
The Award for Best ‘In Practice’ Paper – which specifically recognises work authored by frontline practitioners – was won by a team led by Dr Michelle Gooey at Monash University for their paper on providing optimal care to people who seek treatment for obesity.
The researchers found a lack of services for the treatment of obesity at every level of the Australian healthcare system. They identified three key areas of challenge: the complexity of care required to manage obesity, lack of service capability and capacity, and the high out-of-pocket expenses incurred by patients.
To address these challenges, the authors outlined eight action areas as a starting point, including developing partnerships with people living with obesity; eliminating weight stigma; establishing clear referral pathways and ensuring flexible and accessible service delivery, among others.
“We’re seeing very high rates of obesity in Australia and long delays before people seek help, significantly increasing their risk of major health and psychosocial problems. The world has changed to make it easy to put on excess weight, and it shouldn’t just be up to the individual to change; we need to provide the right services and support for them,” said senior author Professor Louise Baur, who is Professor of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney.
“We simply don’t have a system that provides optimal care for people seeking treatment – our paper outlines both the challenges as well as the actions we urgently need to take to address them.”
The paper was part of a wide-reaching special edition on ‘changing the obesity narrative’ published by the journal in October 2022, produced in partnership with the Health and Social Care Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, with support from VicHealth.
Congratulating all the winners, PHRP Editor-in-Chief Professor Don Nutbeam said the papers exemplify the importance of research evidence in identifying public health challenges and priorities and providing direction for improvements in health policy and practice.
“Our award winners, along with those who have been highly commended for their contribution to the journal, are providing insights of immediate practical importance to health practitioners and policymakers who are best placed to ensure our clinical and public health services services are fit for purpose for the health and wellbeing of our citizens,” he said.
“PHRP has a large and unique reader profile made up of researchers, practitioners and policymakers. By providing a forum that links these communities to innovative research and insights from practice we aim to contribute positively to public health policy and practice in Australia and internationally.”
The awards for Best Paper and Best ‘In Practice’ Paper celebrate excellence in public health research, practice and policy and recognise the inspirational work taking place in Australia. The judging panel, comprising members of the Journal’s Editorial Board, judges papers for factors including their potential impact on public health policy and practice, usefulness to policymakers, researchers and public health practitioners, rigour of methodology and quality of analysis and presentation.
Winning and highly commended papers
Best paper winner
The true cost of hidden waiting times for cataract surgery in Australia (12 October 2022)
Jessie Huang-Lung, Blake Angell, Anna Palagyi, Hugh R Taylor, Andrew White, Peter McCluskey, Lisa Keay
Best paper highly commended
Weight stigma in Australia: a public health call to action (12 October 22)
Blake J Lawrence, Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia, James Kite, Briony Hill, Kelly Cooper, Stuart W Flint, John B Dixon
A better understanding of the science and reality of obesity is urgently needed (12 October 2022)
Tiffany Petre, Adrian Bauman, Priya Sumithran, Gary Sacks, Tim Lobstein, Carel Le Roux, Clare Mullen, Brian Oldfield
Best In Practice paper winner
Health service approaches to providing care for people who seek treatment for obesity: identifying challenges and ways forward (12 October 2022)
Michelle Gooey, Catherine A Bacus, Divya Ramachandran, Milan K Piya, Louise A Baur
Best In Practice paper highly commended
Development of the Consumer Involvement & Engagement Toolkit: a digital resource to build capacity for undertaking patient-centred clinical trials in Australia (15 March 2023)
Tanya Symons, Janelle Bowden, Anne McKenzie, Julia M Fallon-Ferguson, Leanne Y Weekes, James Ansell, Rinki Murphy, Shilpa Jesudason, Manoj Saxena, Alistair Nichol, Nicola Straiton
Please acknowledge Public Health Research & Practice as the source for any stories on our papers.
See more about the awards here.
Media enquiries
Hugo Wilcken, Media Manager, Sax Institute
M: 0451 122 146
E: [email protected]
Megan Howe, Editor, PHRP
M: 0404 466 526
E: [email protected]
