Genevieve Healy

Preventing diabetes through taking small steps for big changes

Small Steps for Big Changes is a diabetes prevention healthy lifestyle program. Developed in Canada, our team has received CIHR-NHMRC grant funding to examine the adaption and implementation of the program into an Australian context with clinical and community partners. We are currently seeking PhD candidates to be involved in this exciting project. Successful candidates will work closely with a range of stakeholders, including consumers, practitioners, industry partners and academics.

This unique opportunity would suit students with a background in allied health, health promotion, public health, health psychology, implementation science, or human movement studies. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are essential. Experience working with industry stakeholders and knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods and behaviour change would be of benefit. First Nations applicants are particularly encouraged to apply.

The Australian NHMRC investigator team includes Professor Genevieve Healy, Dr Ana Goode, Dr Sjaan Gomersall and Professor David Dunstan.

Supporting workers to sit less and move more for their health and wellbeing

The BeUpstanding™ program (www.beupstanding.com.au) supports desk-based work teams to sit less and move more, for better health and wellbeing. Developed by the researchers at the School of Public Health, the University of Queensland, the program is currently being evaluated through a national implementation trial. Findings from the implementation trial will inform future wide-scale dissemination efforts, as well as national and international policy and practice.

We are now seeking HDR students to join the BeUpstanding team and be part of this world-first workplace health promotion initiative. Specifically, we are looking for students to lead a program of work across five streams (five different HDRs): small business, rural and regional workers, large organisations, universities, and call centres. Within each stream, the broad aims of the HDR research will be:

1. To determine the facilitators and barriers to delivery of BeUpstanding using a mixed methods approach
2. To develop implementation strategy(s) to assist in delivering BeUpstanding using a stakeholder engagement process
3. To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the implementation strategy(s) via a pilot study(s).

This unique opportunity would suit students with a background in health promotion, public health, health psychology, implementation science, and/or human movement studies. Excellent communication skills are essential as you will be working with employers and employees. There is currently a funded scholarship available - search BeUpstanding under UQ Earmarked scholarships:

https://graduate-school.uq.edu.au/available-cat-1-phd-projects