The Northern Territory (NT) of Australia faces unique social, political, cultural, and geographical challenges regarding food security for Aboriginal Communities. International research and policy agendas have advocated for greater coherence across government policies that support Indigenous-grounded perspectives on food security, reflecting the lived realities and aspirations of Indigenous Peoples. While the need for cross-government collaboration to support local communities in achieving food security outcomes is recognised in key policies such as the ‘National Strategy for Food Security in Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities’ and ‘Closing the Gap’, implementing this requires practical guidance, with an examination of opportunities to strengthen policies across sectors. This policy analysis therefore explores how the NT Government's public policies can be strengthened to better reflect food security for remote Aboriginal People, drawing on an adapted six-pillar framework of food security (availability, access, utilisation, stability, sustainability, agency). As part of this study, five key NT government departments were assessed against the framework. Of the six pillars, access, utilisation, agency, and sustainability were partially represented by all departments. Stability was the least well-represented pillar, important considering volatility in NT weather and global financial markets. Indigenous self-determination is relevant to all food security pillars; some departments had limited examples of its implementation. Alignment between departments’ objectives is needed, as is greater attention to food stability, availability, and access. Greater attention to policy coherence can strengthen food security across the six pillars, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and in jurisdictions with high levels of food insecurity.

The first author (SH) and the senior author (BC) are of Aboriginal descent, with BC an accepted member of the Larrakia and Wadjigan nations in the Northern Territory. This research will be published, giving recognition to these authors, including attributing their language groups as per their preferences and/or outlining their cultural background in text and in this presentation. This research is part of the Menzies School of Health Research Nutrition team, led by BC, in collaboration with Monash University. This desk-based study, which included no Aboriginal individuals, communities, or organisations as participants, focused entirely on government policy through public-facing documents. The data was all from NT Government departments and is therefore not sensitive or subject to data sovereignty principles, but it is recognised that the research may impact Aboriginal Peoples and Communities.

Background: Social determinants of health - the conditions in which people are born, live, work, and age - have clear influences on access to healthcare and health outcomes. Members of disadvantaged or minoritised groups have poorer health, but there appears to be inconsistent reporting of analyses of demographic differences in public health research.
Methods: A state-of-the-art review (SotAR) was conducted on papers published in 2024 in four leading public health journals: Lancet Public Health, Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health, and Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Eligible studies reported quantitative individual-level data: commentaries, reviews, modelling studies and purely qualitative studies were excluded. The SotAR did not summarise study findings; it assessed their methods. The 227 papers were assessed for their inclusion of gender, ethnicity, SES, sexuality, and disability: these were coded as ‘not measured’, ‘descriptive only’, ‘covariate’ or ‘predictor of outcome’. We also assessed whether intersectional analyses were conducted.
Results: There was significant variation in how demographic variables were used: most papers included gender (87%) or SES (76%) as a predictor or covariate; most did not measure ethnicity (61%), sexuality (96%) or disability (92%), or their associations with health outcomes. There was also significant variation between journals in how demographic variables were used: AJPH was significantly more likely to include analyses of ethnicity as a predictor of outcomes, but significantly less to include analyses of SES differences. Analysis of the impact of demographic variables was not significantly related to sample size. Intersectional analyses were reported in only 4% of papers.
Conclusion: Analyses of social gradients in health are not common in leading public health journals. There is a need to explore how to encourage or mandate analyses of social gradients. Additional intersectional analyses are needed to understand the combined health effects of multiple marginalisation.

Background: Women of refugee background face persistent health inequities influenced by intersecting linguistic, cultural, gendered and structural barriers. For women of refugee background from Myanmar living in Western Australia, these intersecting barriers can shape their access to and appraisal of health information, contributing to unmet information needs. Women draw upon the help of healthcare and settlement service providers, interpreters and community leaders to navigate these barriers. This study aimed to explore the experiences of community leaders, service providers and interpreters in facilitating health information access and understanding for women of refugee background from Myanmar living in Western Australia.

Methods: Using a participatory action research approach, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted between October 2023 and June 2024. Eleven healthcare and settlement service providers, interpreters and community leaders participated. Data underwent reflexive thematic analysis.

Findings: Three themes and 11 subthemes were generated: (1) Providing health information through conversation (subthemes: reciprocity facilitates an exchange of information; reciprocal conversations require trust; finding the language to communicate; limited information resources to support the conversation); (2) Overcoming barriers to information access (subthemes: navigating services requires information and support; transport and location can enhance accessibility; reaching women through community networks); and (3) Advocating for women to promote good health (subthemes: information empowers women with knowledge and skills; preparing women for the broader healthcare system; role-modelling skills to promote self-advocacy; investment to enhance community resources).

Discussion: Stakeholders act as mediators of health literacy, supporting women of refugee background from Myanmar to seek, obtain and appraise health information within a complex, fragmented health system. Findings highlight the need for culturally and linguistically concordant health information resources, consistent interpreter engagement across healthcare settings and investment in community-led partnerships and employment pathways. These recommendations represent practical steps towards addressing structural inequities and strengthening health knowledge amongst refugee-background communities.

Background
Accreditation standards are powerful levers in shaping dental education, guiding curriculum design, institutional culture, and accountability. In Australia, the Australian Dental Council (ADC) recently updated its accreditation standards, with domain six focused on cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. While cultural safety is named explicitly, concepts such as racism, colonisation, and antiracism have failed to be mentioned. To strengthen accountability and progress equity, critical frameworks are needed to assess how accreditation standards support systemic change.
Methods
This study applies a logic model approach to critically analyse the latest ADC accreditation standards, focusing on standards that explicitly or implicitly address equity, cultural safety, ethics, recruitment, training, and care provision in dental education.. Each standard was mapped across five components: inputs, activities/processes, outputs, short-term outcomes, and long-term impacts. Analytical questions were applied to examine explicit and implicit terminology, responsibility language, and agency.
Results
The analysis found that domain six demonstrates strong institutional responsibility for embedding cultural safety, recruitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and integration of Indigenous knowledge in curriculum and governance. Outputs emphasise graduate competence in culturally safe practice and institutional provision of supportive environments. However, across all six standards, racism, antiracism, and colonisation were not explicitly named. This absence risks leaving structural racism unaddressed, limiting long-term impact on equity and racial justice.
Conclusion
The logic model approach highlights strengths in the ADC standards while exposing gaps in explicitly confronting racism and colonisation. Embedding antiracism language and accountability mechanisms in accreditation can transform cultural safety from a broad aim into a strategy for systemic change. These findings offer a framework for advancing equity in dental education and inform future revisions of dental accreditation policy in Australia.

Background:
Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) has increased significantly among migrants in Australia over the past 20 years. The reason for this increased risk of GDM is still largely unknown.
Aim:
To determine the impact of the duration of living in Australia on the development of GDM.
Methods:
This retrospective cohort study analysed data from the Victorian Perinatal Data Collection (VPDC) for births between 2019 and 2021. Of 228,635 women who gave birth during that period, 69,063 were migrants. GDM was defined using the listed variable ‘Obstetric complications’ ICD-10 code. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the association between duration of residence and the risk of GDM, adjusting for potential confounders such as year of birth, maternal age, Body Mass Index (BMI), parity and smoking.
Results:
Among 69,063 participants, GDM prevalence was 28.5% (n = 19,698). GDM prevalence was highest among Southern and Central Asian women (13.2%). Risk was higher among women aged ≥35 years (AOR 1.38, 95% CI: 1.33–1.43) and those with a BMI ≥25 kg/m² (2.05, 1.98–2.1). Women who smoked for >20 weeks had a 43% lower risk of GDM (0.57, 0.43–0.76). Women living in Australia for ≥10 years at the time of delivery had a 17% lower risk of GDM (0.83, 0.79–0.86). A history of GDM in a previous pregnancy was the strongest predictor of GDM diagnosis (50.92, 28.52–90.91), while women residing in metropolitan areas had a higher risk (1.36, 1.27–1.45) than those living in rural areas.
Conclusion:
Longer duration of stay in Australia (≥10 years) was significantly associated with a lower risk of GDM, suggesting a potential protective effect. These findings highlight the need for targeted interventions for newly arrived migrants (<5 years) to reduce their risk of GDM.

Keywords: Gestational diabetes mellitus, Post-migration, Migrant, Risk factor, Australia.

Background evidence: Migration is a social determinant of health (SDH), providing access to social and economic resources. Structural differences in migrant living conditions increase health risks and can lead to health inequities. There is growing evidence of circumstances of migration influencing health, particularly visa types which interact with country of birth.
Research on this topic has largely relied on costly primary studies, limiting identification of how policy settings shape health outcomes. Few existing surveys have sufficient observations on migrants for disaggregated analysis of the intersectionality of visa status, gender, SDH, and country of birth. Linked administrative data offer an affordable alternative but remain underutilised.
Objectives; 1) to determine the utility of the Australian Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset (ACTEID) for conducting population analysis of social determinants of health disaggregated by visa type, gender and country/region of birth. 2) analyse patterns of SDH and how these differ by visa type focusing on student, working holiday makers, and skilled visa holders.
ACTEID links Census and Department of Home Affairs data including on visas, demographics, SDH and health. Published research using ACTEID has been limited to single-country or single-visa-type profiles rather than comparative analysis.
Outcomes: ACTEID has utility for analysis of key SDH by broad visa types (student visa holders, working holiday makers and skilled visa holders), gender and region of birth. Observations allow for disaggregated analysis, uncovering important differences in migrant experiences and outcomes masked by aggregate survey data on migrants. Our analysis found important differences in employment, income and recognition of education and inequities by visa status and gender, which are influenced by immigration rules and structural barriers to equitable outcomes.
Using linked data can move the field beyond exploratory studies to provide representative evidence that can directly inform action by advocates and practitioners to improve migrant health outcomes.

Background
African migrant and refugee women are recognised as a priority group for preconception care (PCC) in Australia, yet little is known about PCC use in this population. This study assessed PCC use and factors associated with its uptake among African migrant and refugee women living in Victoria, Australia.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey distributed through community settings and digital platforms. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between PCC use and selected factors. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs), 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and p-values were reported.
Results
Among 114 women surveyed, 42.1% reported using PCC before their current or most recent pregnancy. Most participants reported a planned pregnancy (75.0%) and generally positive attitudes towards PCC, with a mean attitude score of 31.6 (SD 5.45). Planned pregnancy was associated with higher odds of PCC use (aOR 3.5, 95% CI 1.33-9.13, p=0.011). Living in Australia for 5 years or less was associated with lower odds of PCC use (aOR 0.16, 95% CI 0.03-0.95, p=0.044). More positive attitudes towards PCC were also associated with higher odds of use (aOR 1.90, 95% CI 1.15-3.10, p=0.012).
Conclusions
Despite high rates of planned pregnancy and generally positive attitudes, fewer than half of women reported using PCC. Strategies that promote pregnancy planning, strengthen positive attitudes towards PCC, and improve access for recently arrived women may help increase uptake and reduce inequities in preconception health care.

Background
“Equity” is a key principle in many Australian public health strategies and frameworks. However, knowing how to operationalise equity in day-to-day work can be a practical barrier to ensuring public health interventions reach Australian children and adolescents most in need.
The objective of this study was to explore how public health, health care and social care practitioners and policy makers in Australia promote equity in their work relating to young Australians, and the challenges that they face optimising this practice.

Methods
This mixed-method study included completion of an online survey, followed by participation in one of the following: WhatsApp-based asynchronous focus group or written response to emailed questionnaire or short interview.
Equity-promoting interventions reported by participants were inductively analysed using seven equitable implementation themes identified in a scoping review of implementation processes by Gooey et al (Systematic Reviews, in press). A deductive thematic analysis of barriers and enablers was conducted using the socioecological model.

Results
Nineteen policy makers and practitioners from diverse Australian settings participated in the study. Examples of identified equity-promoting processes included the use of equity-focused frameworks and actively integrating siloed systems and services.
Preliminary analysis identified barriers to equitable action across multiple ecological levels. For example, at a policy level, the lack of departmental leadership “buy in” was highlighted as a challenge. At an organisational level, participants identified the lack of flexibility to provide service models which align with end-user needs as an important barrier. Updated analysis results will be reported.

Conclusion
Equity is a fundamental principle that drives the work of many public health practitioners and policy makers in Australia, however there are challenges in translating it into practice. This research indicates the importance of systems change to operationalise equity in day-to-day public health practice, especially when working with children and adolescents within priority populations.

One Health — the integrated governance of human, animal, and environmental health — is increasingly recognized as essential for pandemic preparedness, zoonotic disease control, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) response. Yet operationalizing One Health at the national policy level remains inconsistent, with wide variation in intersectoral coordination across health, agriculture, and environment ministries. Comparative policy analysis offers a rigorous lens to understand what drives or impedes integration across diverse health system contexts.
This study aims to examine and compare the degree of One Health policy integration across three countries — Pakistan, Australia, and Brazil — representing distinct income levels, governance structures, and regional epidemiological burdens.
A mixed-methods comparative policy analysis will be conducted, combining document analysis of national action plans, legislation, and institutional mandates with quantitative scoring using Joint External Evaluation (JEE) data. The Walt and Gilson policy triangle framework will structure analysis across four dimensions: content, context, process, and actors. Countries were selected using a most-different systems design to maximize analytical contrast and generalizability of findings.
This study will produce a cross-country One Health integration scorecard, identify structural enablers and barriers to intersectoral coordination, and generate actionable policy recommendations. Findings are expected to highlight gaps in low-resource settings and surface transferable governance models from higher-capacity systems.
Strengthening One Health integration requires moving beyond frameworks to enforceable policy and funded institutional coordination. This analysis contributes comparative evidence to inform national strategies and global solidarity efforts in building resilient, systems-oriented public health infrastructure.

Objective: Health inequities related to diet and nutrition among migrant and ethnic minority populations in Australia, remain poorly characterised despite widespread cultural diversity. This study aims to summarise the available literature on the food, diet and nutrition-related health outcomes, and drivers of these, amongst migrant and ethnic minority communities in Australia.
Method: A scoping review was conducted across three academic databases in January 2025. Studies were included if they examined diet behaviour, food/nutrient intake, food insecurity, anthropometric measures or biomarkers, and focused on migrant or ethnic minority communities in Australia from low- or middle-income countries.
Results: Forty-eight studies published since 1995 met the inclusion criteria, with most being cross-sectional (n=28) and involving either African (n=19) or Asian (n=17) or both populations (n=7). Five categories of nutrition-related challenges were identified: micronutrient deficiencies (Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and iron), dietary changes (reduced consumption of traditional foods and fibre, increased consumption of energy-dense foods), non-communicable disease risk factors (overweight and obesity, hyperglycaemia, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia), food insecurity (mostly among refugees and asylum seekers), and diet acculturation (linked with sociocultural identity, economic and intergenerational transitions). Common drivers of these outcomes were recent migration; socioeconomic hardship; barriers to food access, especially traditional food access; and challenges navigating Western food environments.
Conclusion: There is a need for culturally responsive and structurally informed public health and policy approaches that address both immediate dietary needs and the broader social and environmental determinants shaping nutrition-related health among migrant and ethnic minority populations in Australia. Future research should explore self-determined programs and policies that improve food and nutrition outcomes for these communities.

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