This study examines the delivery of integrated sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services at SHINE SA, a leading community-based provider in South Australia. Despite a national policy emphasis on integrating SRH into primary healthcare, there is limited empirical evidence on how such models operate in practice. This qualitative case study explores SHINE SA’s integrated care approach, drawing on ten in-depth interviews with clinical and managerial staff across two sites. The study applies the WHO Health Systems Framework and Valentijn’s Rainbow Model of Integrated Care to analyse organisational processes, workforce dynamics, and system-level challenges.
Findings highlight SHINE SA’s strengths in co-located, multidisciplinary service delivery, supported by strong internal leadership, inclusive clinical practices, and informal partnerships. Internal referrals and a hybrid service model enable person-centred care that addresses the complex needs of diverse populations, including LGBTQ+ communities and clients living with HIV. However, systemic barriers such as workforce shortages, limited infrastructure, fragmented digital systems, and underfunding constrain the organisation’s capacity to deliver fully integrated care. The absence of a formal service navigator role and the reliance on informal external partnerships further limit system responsiveness and scalability.
The study concludes that while SHINE SA provides a model for inclusive, person-centred SRH care, its sustainability is threatened by structural challenges within the broader health system. Addressing these issues requires long-term, flexible funding; investment in workforce development; improved infrastructure; and strengthened formal partnerships. SHINE’s experience offers valuable insights for policymakers and service providers seeking to design and implement integrated SRH services that are equitable, sustainable, and responsive to community needs. The study calls for policy and funding reforms to support the scale-up of integrated SRH models within primary healthcare systems across Australia.

Background:
In July 2021, Australia faced a surge in youth vaping, with easy access and growing public concern highlighting the ineffectiveness of existing legislation. To drive evidence-led policy change, a coalition of government, academic, and non-government organisations launched ‘Generation Vape’, Australia's first and largest vaping research collaboration.

Intervention or Response:
Led by Cancer Council in collaboration with the University of Sydney and the Daffodil Centre and supported by Australian government agencies, Generation Vape investigates the awareness, perceptions, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviours related to vape use among Australians aged 14-24 years, parents, and teachers.
Since its inception in July 2021, the project has collected data biannually through national cross-sectional surveys and annually through focus groups and interviews. The aim was to build a robust evidence base to inform policy, programs, and education initiatives and advocate to comprehensively address vaping in Australia.

Impact:
Generation Vape's extensive translation activities were pivotal in achieving Australia's landmark total ban on vape sales outside of pharmacies in July 2024.
To date, Generation Vape has gathered data from >25,000 young people, 16,000 parents, and 2,500 teachers across Australia. The findings revealed how easily youth accessed illicit nicotine vapes from both retailers and social sources due to policy loopholes that failed to include non-nicotine vapes.
Results have been instrumental in shaping Australian vaping laws, campaigns, enforcement, cessation initiatives, and school curriculum. Findings were cited in both state and federal inquiries into vaping from numerous public health organisations and featured heavily in media reporting.

Conclusion:
Australia's evolving vaping regulatory landscape offers valuable lessons for the public health community. Research collaborations like Generation Vape underscore the importance of cross-sector partnerships, leadership and the critical role of research and knowledge translation in shaping policy. This work is a practical blueprint for advocates and policymakers to achieve evidence-led policy change.

Public health advocacy in Victoria often occurs in silos, resulting in fragmented messaging and reduced impact on policy and funding outcomes. To address this challenge, the Victorian Branch of Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) has initiated the One Voice Alliance project, a coordinated and collaborative effort to improve public health outcomes and to make Victoria healthier. This project aims to unite the public health sector ahead of the 2026 Victorian state election. This initiative will identify critical gaps and address them by aligning advocacy efforts across organisations to present a unified voice on key health issues.
Stakeholder engagement will occur through a phased approach: (1) stakeholder identification; (2) Identifying key priorities and commonalities across stakeholders; (3) Co-designing consistent election advocacy messages with stakeholders; and (4) mobilisation of advocacy efforts using the key election messaging (e.g. workshops, meetings, webinars, debates). The expected outcomes of this process will aim to amplify public health advocacy through coordinated efforts of the public health sector in the lead-up to the 2026 State Election.
This project provides a framework for uniting the public health sector. It is anticipated that this process will provide key insights into challenges and opportunities for public health advocacy in the lead up to State Elections. By encouraging collaboration and shared messaging, it also aims to strengthen trust and improve the overall visibility of preventive health priorities.
In addition to outlining the planned advocacy process, this abstract examines broader factors in collaborative public health initiatives and highlights the navigational complexities of cross-sector public health advocacy in the lead up to elections.

Elective surgery waitlists are often viewed as a backlog challenge. However, they also present a unique opportunity to engage patients in preventative health interventions that could improve surgical outcomes and overall wellbeing.
The Planned Surgery Waitlist pilot project in South Eastern Sydney Local Health District reimagines the waitlist period by shifting the narrative from passive waiting to a proactive window for preventative healthcare. This innovative project targets patients aged 16 years and over awaiting elective surgery. The project aims to reduce postoperative complications, enhance recovery, and contribute to long-term health benefits by supporting patients to optimise their health during the whole of the perioperative period.
At the time of referral for surgery, patients receive an automated text message connecting them to a newly developed website that hosts evidence-based preventative health information and resources in English and Simplified Chinese, and tailored content for Aboriginal patients. The website was co-designed with five consumers with lived experience of recent elective surgery, four of whom are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including one who is living with a disability, and staff from the Aboriginal Health Directorate and Surgery, Anaesthetics and Perioperative clinical services to ensure relevance, accessibility, and cultural safety of the intervention.
Empowering patients with knowledge and resources aligns with broader public health goals and contributes to embedding a preventative approach into clinical services.
Evaluation of the project includes patient and staff rated acceptability and feasibility of the model of care, and monitoring of perioperative indicators pre- and post-intervention. Early insights point to good engagement and the potential for scalability, offering a cost-effective model to complement surgical pathways.
Harnessing the waitlist period as a window of opportunity may be key to transforming how health systems embed prevention into clinical care.

Background
Older Australians are living longer with unmet social needs that impact their health and wellbeing. Social prescribing connects older adults with non-clinical social services. Despite uptake internationally, social prescribing remains underutilised in Australia. This program, Prescriptions for Connection, involves collaboration between three local government councils, Adelaide Primary Health Network (PHN), universities and general practices. This program aims to design, implement and evaluate the feasibility of a social prescribing program to address the unmet social needs of older adults in primary care and local council settings.
Methods
Evaluation of Prescriptions for Connection involves a feasibility mixed-methods design. Implementation outcomes will be evaluated using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance Framework. Quality of life, mental wellbeing and loneliness outcomes for older people will be explored. Qualitative data collection, via focus groups for health and social care providers and interviews for older people, will be based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to explore barriers and facilitators, and explain outcomes.
Findings
Prescriptions for Connection has been co-designed with general practices and three council areas in Adelaide. The program involves general practices referring lonely, socially older people to Prescriptions for Connection, whereby Council based social prescribing officers and volunteers will facilitate personalised social connections and activities. Preliminary research findings will also be presented.
Conclusion
Prescriptions for Connection is a novel, collaborative, social prescribing program to support the needs of community-based older people experiencing social isolation and loneliness. Findings from this program will inform outcomes for older people, and will support scalability and broader adoption in primary care.

Introduction:

A One Health approach requires collaboration across human, animal, and environmental sectors. Successful implementation of this approach in government settings requires commitment at all leadership levels. This abstract examines how NSW has strengthened interagency networks to enhance One Health approaches to zoonotic disease risks.

Objectives:

• Examine the roles of human, animal, and environmental health agencies in a One Health approach.
• Identify gaps in agency engagement and knowledge sharing affecting response efforts.

Approach/Content Overview:

NSW has fostered cross-agency collaboration between human and animal health, particularly in foodborne illness investigations, and recently, enhancing partnerships for zoonotic risk assessment and response.

Key achievements include a One Health Agreement between NSW agencies, including data sharing arrangements and governance, regular interagency meetings at executive and operational levels and cross-agency integration into emergency response structures to streamline rapid communication. Multi-agency networks, including with wildlife partners, are established as core business for surveillance and information sharing.

The Japanese encephalitis virus response in NSW demonstrated the value of these strong partnerships established in peacetime for early disease notification. However, recent avian influenza preparedness and Buruli ulcer responses highlight the need for continual engagement with new partners in this space, particularly with technical experts in environmental fields.

The gaps in environmental surveillance, particularly in the unique Australian context, highlight the need for stronger engagement with environmental specialists to understand the ecological drivers of disease transmission.

Key Findings & Implications:

• Building on the success of existing partnerships to further collaborate with environmental health experts across strategic and operational levels will enable a fully integrated One Health approach
• Understanding the role of landscape ecology in disease dynamics remains a critical gap but collaboration with landscape and wildlife ecologists will support a proactive approach to disease threats

Background and objectives: In Australia, asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease. In three local government areas (LGAs) in Melbourne’s inner west with known high levels of air pollution, we compare childhood asthma-related emergency department (ED) visits to Victoria overall, and explore parents’ perceived enablers and barriers to community-based asthma care.
Methods: Data were drawn from an administrative dataset (2007-2019) and a cross-sectional survey of parents across six public primary schools in the three LGAs (2022-2023) from Melbourne’s inner west. Risk ratios were calculated to compare ED presentation rates in the three LGAs with the overall Victoria. Asthma control, management practices, asthma care enablers and barriers were compared across LGAs using Chi-Square or Fisher’s Exact test.
Results: From 2007 to 2019, inner-west Melbourne LGAs consistently ranked in the top 25% for childhood asthma-related ED visits. ED visit rates were 26-53% higher in the three LGAs compared to Victoria overall. A total of 545 (response rate 14-47% across LGAs) completed surveys on 781 children, and 166 parents reported having at least one child with asthma. While parents identified GPs, pharmacists and EDs as the most helpful resources for asthma care, less than half of parents consulted a GP during their child’s asthma exacerbations, over one-third of children did not have an asthma action plan and nearly half had taken their child to the hospital because of a concern about asthma. Barriers to community-based asthma care included parental fear during asthma exacerbations, difficulty accessing GPs, and concerns about medication side effects.
Discussion: Melbourne’s inner west is an area where childhood asthma-related ED presentation rates are high. This warrants further investigation and development of strategies to improve community-based asthma care and reduce local triggers, including air pollution.