The best prevention policies (like WHO Best Buys) threaten the profits of powerful corporations, who seek to weaken and block their development and implementation. One powerful, but often invisible form of political influence is the revolving door, defined as the movement of individuals between public and private sector employment. In Australia, we lack a detailed understanding of the revolving door. This is a crucial lacuna for public health groups advocating for prevention policies.

To lay the groundwork for future research, we conducted a scoping review to answer two questions: what aspects of the revolving door have been explored? And, how useable or reuseable are the data? Using Advanced Google and targeted website searches, we systematically documented grey literature about the revolving door in Australia, US and UK. We charted the data and developed a framework to evaluate five aspects of data reusability.

From 2003 to 2024, we found 38 datasets in Australia, the UK, and the USA. Most studies focused on ‘lobbying’ or the 'revolving door' generally (18, 36%), followed by fossil fuels (11, 22%) and military and weapons (7, 14%). A public health focus was only encountered in four records: games and liquor; tobacco and gambling; health ministers; health services, pharmaceuticals, hospitals. Data use and reuse was limited, with only four ranked ‘high’, seven ‘medium’ and 27 ‘low’.

There is a clear gap in understanding the revolving door of industries linked with non-communicable diseases and other health harms. Nonetheless, this study has identified several datasets and methods that can be built on to grow the evidence base on this important topic. Databases such as OpenSecrets in the US can provide a ‘best practice’ example in making the data useable and reusable for researchers, NGOs and others interested in understanding (and ultimately challenging) the political influence of harmful industries.

Introduction: Primary Health Care (PHC) nurses and midwives provide vital health care in the community that keeps people well and out of hospital. There are approximately 98,000 PHC nurses working in nearly every community across Australia, representing ~26% of the nursing and midwifery workforce in Australia. Their roles in prevention are diverse and include early interventions, health education, and risk factor management, positioning them as key contributors to public health and chronic disease reduction.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted from October to December 2023, inviting all nurses and midwives working across Australia in PHC to participate. The study received ethical approval from the institutional review board.

Results: A total of 2,971 surveys were completed (65% response rate). The majority were registered nurses (76.6%) and worked in general practice (56.6%). Common tasks included infection control (75.2%), wound management (69.8%), immunisation management (64.6%), and medication management (57.8%). However, PHC nurses expressed a desire to increase their involvement in more health assessments (42.9%), suturing (39.5%), health education (34.1%), and specialized care (36.6%), particularly in Aboriginal health and chronic conditions. However, 31% of nurses report only ‘occasionally’ or ‘rarely’ working to their full scope of practice. Barriers to PHC nurses practicing to full scope include a lack of financial incentives and resistance to change among colleagues. Workforce survey data also reveals that PHC nurses feel undervalued by the Government, with only 12.5% feeling recognised for their contributions as nurses and midwives.

Conclusion: PHC nurses are essential to preventive health but feel underutilised. Despite a strong desire to engage more in preventative health care such as undertaking health assessments, education, and early intervention risk assessments, they remain underutilised due to systemic barriers including lack of recognition by Government, highlighting the need for policy changes to better support and leverage their expertise.

Intro: The “Take Control – Live Well” program is a self-management, secondary prevention program for adults living with chronic conditions. After its launch in 2019, there have been ongoing challenges in gaining fiscal and promotional support by the organisation due to its perceived lack of priority resulting in low attendance in the program. To help combat this lack of support, we are collaborating with Flinders University to conduct research investigating the feasibility and acceptability of applying the Flinders Program for Chronic Condition to a group setting.

Methods: Using a mixed method approach, the “Take Control – Live Well” program will be evaluated using validated Patient Reported Outcome and Experience Measures at pre-program, post-program, 3-months and 6-months. Furthermore, five research participants will be recruited via purposive sampling to participate in semi-structured qualitative interviews which will undergo thematic analysis. Data is being collected from March 2024 to May 2025. A research grant was awarded to support the licencing of the evaluation tools and advertising of the program.

Results: In collaboration with Flinders University, we will analyse the feasibility and acceptability of the “Take Control – Live Well” program in the group setting by comparing responses to previous studies completed in the individual setting. With assistance from the grant, the program has been advertised on regular basis throughout 2024 in a prominent local magazine. Since the commencement of the research and advertising we have increased attendance at our groups. We hope to have initial data to share by the time of the Preventive Health Conference.

Conclusion: Our experience highlights how formal research, and associated grants, can assist with navigating the politics and perceived priorities that act as barriers to preventive health work. We have increased the reach of program and interest in our prevention work among higher levels of the organisation.

Problem:
A lack of robust evidence surrounding the increase in availability of ‘unhealthy’ commercial foods for infants and toddlers in Australia and New Zealand and the long-term impact on early childhood feeding trajectories (0-36 months) can limit policy and regulation in this area.
What we did:
The Infant and Toddler Foods Research Alliance was founded in 2022 in response to research gaps in early childhood feeding and the impact of commercial foods for infants and toddlers. Founding members of the Alliance sought to include a multidisciplinary membership of researchers, practitioners, clinicians, and public health advocates, situated in academic, non- government and health promotion organisations. The Alliance aims to increase collaboration between institutions and disciplines by building a coalition that will generate momentum for advocacy, policy and practice to promotes optimal infant and toddler nutrition.
Results:
The Alliance encompasses a Trans-Tasman diverse team of over 30 individuals and has three priority themes: commercial foods and milks for infants and toddlers; health and care settings and systems; and support for parents and carers, along with three cross-cutting impact areas: building evidence, translating evidence, and advocacy. The Alliance has collectively contributed to policy submissions in Australia such as the Early Years Strategy and Commercial Foods for Young Children. Most notably members of the Alliance formed the national public health working group for the consultation on commercial foods for young children led by the Food for Health Alliance, which facilitated submissions from public health groups, ensuring that a public health voice was aligned.
Lessons:
Through the Alliance new national and international collaborations have been formed, research dissemination through shared networks have been amplified, and advocacy on relevant issues has been united. This demonstrates that when academics, clinicians and civil society work together as a coalition to reframe issues and mobilise resources, political will can be generated.

Background: The World Health Assembly has called for a Global Action Plan to address health inequities imposed upon Indigenous peoples. In seeking equity, Aboriginal peoples and allies have called for truth telling about colonisation and its relation to healthcare. Australian healthcare, largely based on the biomedical model, is inadequate in terms of design, delivery, and access for Aboriginal peoples. Healthcare employees are known to contribute to health inequities.

Purpose: This study explores non-Indigenous healthcare employee perceptions and experiences of engaging with Aboriginal peoples.

Methods: Forty-nine participants from an Australian hospital participated in qualitative interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, and data analysed with reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: Four themes were identified, including perceptions of: colonisation, Aboriginal peoples and knowledges, racism toward Aboriginal people, and healthcare inequities imposed upon Aboriginal people. Many participants were oblivious to how colonisation and racism create present healthcare inequities. Contributing to limited understanding were participant feelings of distress and subsequent disengagement with the history of colonisation.

Conclusions: Healthcare education requires better truth telling methods to achieve health equity. We suggest trials of collaborative modes of education from arts and humanities that simultaneously recognise continuing colonial ideology and promote antiracism. Crucially, as the World Health Assembly notes, from design to implementation, these strategies must foreground and involve Aboriginal peoples, and deeper understanding of what it is to be an Indigenous ally.

Movement and strength are essential components of preventative healthcare, yet engaging seniors in these programs over the long-term can be challenging.

Imagine a dance class where everyone is moving to your favourite song from youth. Now, envision this experience in Australia, whilst dancing to a song from your cultural background, say from China, Italy, or Pakistan. How would it feel to connect to this group through music from your culture?

Music serves as a powerful cultural connector, offering not only physical and cognitive health benefits essential for health aging, but is also a means to foster community and social engagement.

This interactive workshop will demonstrate the transformative impact of music-based therapeutic programs, highlighting how thoughtful music curation can create a heart-healthy workout in a fun and inclusive community environment.

Dance Health Alliance is a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to promoting the benefits of music and movement for seniors. We train movement practitioners to deliver our DanceWise and DanceMoves programs in care homes and community centres across Australia. To date we have trained around 500 movement practitioners, a majority being allied health professionals, 90% of which work in rural areas, enabling them to effectively implement our programs and begin to shift the allied healthcare landscape.

Our adaptable, evidence-based programs cater to diverse groups and are adaptable to each person’s ability, making them a sustainable, low-cost solution for equitable, preventative healthcare across diverse cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.

Join us for a dynamic, interactive demonstration that showcases how dance and music can inspire seniors to move and build cross-cultural connections. Together, we can enhance the landscape of allied health care—one dance move at a time.

Problem
This project was developed to co-design solutions that improve accessibility to digital technologies for health prevention and care for people living in high-risk housing settings (community housing, public housing, caravan parks, and homelessness) in Melbourne. Such a process is predicated on thorough and authentic engagement of the focus population throughout the research process, with ample representation across all subgroups. Consequently, it was particularly important to engage the often hardest to reach voices, given our accessibility focus.

What you did
The research team developed a stepwise model for participant recruitment and retention in a challenging context. This model prioritised relationship-building with local service providers and community leaders, intensive participant support, and a clear framework for adapting to the particularities and challenges of diverse research sites. The stepwise model included initial scoping and relationship building activities to facilitate in-depth, site-specific contextual understanding, for example through volunteering, facilitated site visits, and semi-structured interactions with on-site staff. Subsequent research delivery was tailored to site-specific and participant-specific challenges . This research model allowed, for example, for flexible delivery and administration of surveys to account for individual variation in preferences, including 1-on-1, small group, and large group opportunities in both private and public spaces. Participants were invited to consent to taking part in an interview or a workshop to co-design response ideas.

Results
Data entry of initial surveys completed independently by participants identified (sometimes hidden) illiteracy, so survey administration was adjusted to the researcher reading out all instructions and items. A total of 204 surveys were completed, 13 residents participated in interviews, and 21 residents participated in workshops.

Lessons
1. Existing trusted relationships strengthen participant engagement.
2. No one method of participant engagement or research delivery will reach all.
3. An adaptable approach can engage difficult-to-reach participants, facilitating a fairer sampling of the entire population.

Australia’s food regulatory system could achieve its stated public health and consumer objectives, but currently it demonstrably does not provide adequate protection from the harms caused by unhealthy products. A review of the legislation underpinning and guiding our food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), commenced in 2020. This offered an opportunity to reform a government agency that oversees key aspects of our food systems to enable it to better support health and wellbeing.

Government activities, as well as public health and consumer group responses, set out how this reform has developed over the period 2020-2024. Analyses of relevant documents and events informs an assessment of what this might mean for public health.

Since its inception, the review has both explicitly and implicitly focussed on further enhancing benefits to industry. Meanwhile, consistent calls to address the failure of the food regulatory system to protect Australians from harmful products have been ignored. Government proposals to date would reduce transparency and independent oversight, introduce weaker regulatory forms, undermine public health and consumer engagement, and ultimately lead to the further dominance of unhealthy products in our food systems. Specific proposals put forward by public health and consumer groups, such as instituting a practical framework to guide FSANZ in line with its legislated objectives or introducing statutory timeframes for work dedicated to public good, remain excluded from further government consideration.

Reforms that support FSANZ to meet its public health and consumer objectives, as well as increased resources and expertise to work towards this, are needed. The implications of the directions this review has taken are clear, however. The proposals put forward by government may increase risks to our communities, affect public trust and confidence in our food systems, and undermine governments’ stated priorities to reduce the burden and cost of non-communicable diseases.

Introduction: Governments often seek academic research evidence to assist public health decision-making, including decisions about preventative health (in)actions. However, when governments become involved in public health research, this may influence the research process, compromising the evidence created and potentially altering government policy and practice choices. Despite the implications this issue may have on population health outcomes, there is a surprising lack of research on how governments influence the public health research process. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review to establish the extent of the literature on government influence and the public health research process, detail key characteristics of government influence, and identify gaps in the literature.

Methods: We searched five electronic databases and grey literature. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, and full-text. The extracted data included the literature source, project characteristics, and nature of government influence reported. We categorised and analysed the results using descriptive numerical summaries and narrative synthesis.

Results: Literature and hand searches yielded 5754 unique documents; 67 were eligible for full review. In total, 17 documents describing government influence were included. Published from 2007-2021, most came from the UK (n=8) and/or Australia (n=11). In total, 126 modes of influence were reported, which could take multiple forms within one document and occur at any stage of the research process. “Direct” influence was most frequently reported, while “subtle” influence was reported least. Government influence was predominantly negative in 13 of 17 documents, with one reporting solely positive influences.

Conclusions: Our scoping review summarises instances when governments have influenced the public health research process; few were positive. The results highlight a need to understand government-academic interactions so we can foster positive interactions that create robust evidence for decision-making. In doing so, this may encourage governments to make preventative health choices that support beneficial population health outcomes.

Firearm injury prevention has never been more political than in the shadow of the 1996 Port Arthur tragedy. Despite 20 years of gun control advocacy the States and Territories could not agree on nation gun reform.

Within 12 days of Port Arthur, all jurisdictions agreed to one of the largest public health reforms we have ever seen. A National Firearms Agreement and a Gun Buy Back scheme was agreed and all jurisdictions updated their legislation and implemented change.

The public health outcome has been significant and recently recognised by the PHAA as one of the greatest public health successes of the last 20 years.

However, despite this national agreement, not a single jurisdiction is fully compliant, even after nearly 30 years.

The primary reason for this situation is the continued political influence of the firearm industry. There are around twenty elected politicians around the country from parties with specific policies undermining the National Firearms Agreement. Many of these hold the balance of power or are influential cross benchers in upper Houses of Parliament.

Some of these parties have close links to the firearm industry. Some parties have been recorded seeking donations from the NRA in the USA. Some ex-Ministers hold governance positions on firearm industry organisations.

There are over 100 shooting organisations who wield their political influence relentlessly. They hold shooting events for parliamentarians. They hold shooting events for the Canberra press gallery.

The significant financial resources of the shooting industry are wielded in political campaigns, candidate endorsement, political engagement and lobbying.

The firearm industry might not be one of largest impacting public health, but it is one of the most successful.