Shifting food environments towards healthier options is a complex challenge that depends on coordinated action across multiple system components including policy, leadership, workforce, procurement, and governance. FoodChecker is a digital platform designed to support organisations assess the nutritional quality of foods and drinks against state government nutrition criteria for long day care, schools, hospitals and health services, and more. It was developed by the National Nutrition Foundation, with support from Victorian Government.

Since 2017, FoodChecker has evolved from a Victorian tool into a nationally adaptable infrastructure funded by four state governments: Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia. It provides tailored, real-time feedback aligned with each jurisdiction’s nutrition policies, enabling users to assess menus, improve procurement practices, and implement system-level change. To date, over 6,300 individuals from over 3,600 organisations have completed 140,000 assessments in FoodChecker.

FoodChecker’s impact depends on how it is embedded into organisational processes. Skilled health professionals who work in food service, nutrition, menu planning, engaging stakeholders and policy implementation play a critical role in engaging settings, and translating insights into action. Leadership commitment, policy alignment, and governance structures are essential to convert assessment results into sustained improvements.

FoodChecker illustrates how digital tools can serve as infrastructure within broader prevention systems. Its value lies in how it connects policy to practice, builds skills in translating nutrition standards into action, and enables consistent implementation across diverse settings and jurisdictions. When embedded into organisational processes and supported by leadership, governance, and workforce capability, FoodChecker becomes a lever for system-wide change. As jurisdictions invest in prevention, FoodChecker offers a scalable, adaptable model that supports evidence-informed decision-making, strengthens accountability, and fosters collaboration.

Problem:
LiveLighter® is a comprehensive healthy lifestyle program, funded by the Western Australian (WA) Department of Health since 2012, and delivered by Cancer Council WA. To complement the ‘Start Small’ campaign on increasing legume consumption (August to September 2025), a personalized strategy to increase confidence and skills in cooking with beans was trialed.

What you did:
The Team Keen Bean Challenge (TKB) was a four-week cooking challenge designed to run on an electronic direct mail (EDM) platform. TKB was advertised on social media, newsletters, radio and digital advertising. Registration during the campaign period was incentivized with a competition. Registrants received weekly emails, each containing: two bean-centric recipes (with shopping lists) tailored to household size; recipe videos accessible on multiple platforms; information and additional resources; and a single survey item. The final email included a brief evaluation survey link.

Results:
A total of 989 registrations were received Most people (68%) were new or very new to cooking with beans (n=549). YouTube (42%) was the most popular platform to watch recipe content (n=52). Engagement with TKB content on social media platforms was low. Overall, 93% of respondents agreed TKB was enjoyable (n=41). Most also agreed TKB increased their confidence (73%) and skills (66%) in cooking with beans.

Lessons:
Using an EDM platform to schedule rolling registration to TKB was a low effort, high reward way to engage with our audience. We had less engagement on social media and more engagement via survey questions in the EDMs than expected. Inclusion of single item survey questions in EDMs can provide a low effort way to gain feedback from your audience. As “scrolling” becomes a source of entertainment or distraction, getting into someone’s inbox adds an extra opportunity to leverage our existing content (recipes and cooking videos).

The Way to Wellness (WTW) portal exemplifies how digital health tools can enhance the reach and efficiency of preventive health programs. Delivered by the Health Contact Centre and commissioned by the Prevention Strategy Branch at Queensland Health, WTW is a statewide virtual service supporting patients to optimise their health while on public waiting lists through risk assessment, brief advice, and referral to evidence-based programs.

In response to service delivery challenges, including long call durations, manual processing, and patient fatigue, WTW developed a secure, user-friendly online portal. Launched in mid-2023, the portal enables patients to complete a dynamic risk assessment online, receive tailored brief advice instantly, and access a summary via email. This digital-first approach empowers patients to actively participate in their care and streamlines the telephone-based component of the service, allowing the counselling workforce to focus on co-creating personalised health goals and action plans with patients.

Preliminary evaluation has demonstrated strong uptake (over 75% of patients use the portal), a 27% reduction in call duration, and high satisfaction among both patients and staff. The portal has reduced manual overhead and enabled the service to support an additional 400 patients (29% increase) annually without increasing staffing. Through consumer evaluation, users have reported confidence in the portal’s usability, clarity, and relevance of health advice. All users completed the risk assessment independently, highlighting accessibility. Feedback has informed improvements in language and layout, which have since been implemented.

This project highlights how digital platforms can support scalable behaviour change and contribute to the sustainability of preventive health services. The WTW portal serves as a proof of concept for other preventive health initiatives. The presentation will offer insights into the lessons learned and benefits of digital health interventions such as the WTW portal.

Background: Co-design is a critical tool to collaboratively develop preventive health interventions with stakeholders and end users. However, evaluations of co-designed products against participant recommendation are limited. We aimed to evaluate a co-designed Preventing Stroke Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) to determine whether co-design outputs were reflected in the final MOOC product.
Methods: The Preventing Stroke MOOC was co-designed in 2023 with health knowledge experts (n=10; 80% female) and community members (n=12; 58% female). The evaluation had three steps: (1) deductive content analysis of the MOOC; (2) deductive content analysis of 12 co-design focus groups (6 health experts; 6 community members); and (3) triangulation of findings. Deductive codes were derived from six design elements (learning objectives, structure, content, exercise, assessment and media selection) in the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional design model.
Results: The MOOC comprised seven core and nine optional mini-modules covering biomedical and lifestyle risk factors modules. These provided critical information to address poor knowledge, and identification and management of stroke risk factors in the community. Triangulation demonstrated the MOOC incorporated most suggestions from co-design focus groups across the six design categories. Recommendations not incorporated in the MOOC were identified across three design categories (learning objectives, content, and media selection). These included inconsistent learning objectives across mini-modules, content not always being presented in an aphasia-friendly format, limited use of simple language aligned with health literacy principles, and absence of multilingual features and media.
Conclusion: By evaluating the final co-designed MOOC features against the original codesign recommendations, we identified gaps to inform future refinements to the MOOC. This research has provided insights for strengthening the co-design process of digital education tools.

Problem:
Partners of breastfeeding parents are uniquely positioned to provide breastfeeding support, however, are often overlooked in intervention design. Evidence indicates that mobile health (mHealth) programs delivered to partners can improve exclusive breastfeeding and breastfeeding self-efficacy, highlighting their potential as scalable tools for personalised prevention. Healthy Beginnings for HNEKids (HB4HNEKids), an existing mHealth program, invited breastfeeding participants to connect their partner/support person to a tailored mHealth package. Initial sign-up rates were lower than anticipated, highlighting the need to refine recruitment tools to better engage partners.

What we did:
Breastfeeding participants in HB4HNEKids were sent a text invitation to sign up their partner/support person to receive up to 30 text messages over 6 months with practical tips to support breastfeeding. Nine combinations of three conditions (wording of invitation message; timing of invitation; recruitment survey format) were modified to improve engagement and reach. Refinements occurred in stages, allowing iterative testing based on engagement.

Results:
A minimum of 40 participants were exposed to each combination. Recruitment rates ranged from 4-24%. Wording strongly influenced engagement: warm, family-oriented phrasing referencing both mum and infant and explicitly using the term partner produced the highest response, while clinical language reduced engagement. Messages sent between 6-7pm achieved higher engagement (19-24%) than those sent during business hours (4-15%). Simplifying the sign-up survey further improved recruitment. The final optimised message, sent between 6-7pm, referencing ‘partner’ and ‘family support’, and linking to a short survey, achieved a 41% click rate and 24% recruitment rate.

Lessons:
Encouraging breastfeeding parents to connect their partners to mHealth programs shows promise, but requires attention to message design, timing, and tone. Even small changes, including personalising language and optimising delivery time, can considerably influence engagement. These findings demonstrate how parent-led recruitment can be leveraged to extend program reach and deliver personalised preventive health interventions at scale.

Introduction: Every year, 2,000 Australians lose their life to skin cancer, and melanoma diagnoses are projected to increase. To address this, the federal government has funded a roadmap towards a targeted skin cancer screening program. The roadmap presents an opportunity to embed primary skin cancer prevention in skin cancer screening and early detection (secondary prevention). Following review of the evidence and barriers to implementation, we designed a brief SunSmart intervention that combines personalised skin cancer prevention advice, delivered by nursing staff during skin imaging, with text-message education and reminders, sent over the subsequent 8-weeks. After engaging health service staff and consumers to refine the SunSmart intervention, we then conducted a pilot study to test acceptability and feasibility.

Methods: The pilot feasibility study was nested in the Australian Centre for Excellence in Melanoma Imaging and Diagnosis (ACEMID) cohort study at Alfred Health. We used a mixed-methods approach to integrate process data with survey data and qualitative data from participants and providers of the SunSmart in ACEMID study. Survey questions were structured around Sekhon’s acceptability framework for healthcare interventions. Data collection occurred from January to May 2025.

Results: Overall, the SunSmart in ACEMID pilot was highly acceptable to recipients and providers. The intervention's practicality, integration into existing appointments, and low burden design were key to its success. The content did not always provide new learning to participants, however most (70%) agreed it motivated them to increase their sun protection. Participants self-reported behaviours such as increased use of the UV Index, more consistent adoption of sun protection behaviours targeted in the personalised advice and sharing information with others.

Conclusions: This pilot study demonstrated it is feasible and acceptable to deliver a brief skin cancer prevention intervention during skin imaging and screening. Further research is needed to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.

Introduction: Local neighbourhood environments are important for shaping walkability, but few instruments exist to assess walkability in rural areas and most are researcher-driven. This study aims to describe the development and evaluation of a digital tool to measure walkability in rural areas.

Methods: The Communities for Walkability digital tool was co-developed by researchers and community members, through group meetings, pilot testing, and individual feedback. Sixty-one community members in 10 small rural Tasmanian towns conducted 80 street segment audits using the digital tool and/or participated in workshops to prioritise issues and identify solutions; 16 participants engaged in semi-structured interviews. Geospatial assessments of walkability were completed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Qualitative data were content/thematically analysed and quantitative data analysed descriptively.

Results: It was feasible for citizen scientists to collect data using the largely acceptable digital tool, with some areas for improvement identified. These improvements included the conflict between the sequential nature of tool items and the non-sequential nature of attributes encountered during data collection, the inability to review/save findings, and technical difficulties uploading photographs. Digital tool data demonstrated moderate to strong correlations with geospatially assessed walkability, particularly safety, commercial land use, and perceived overall walkability. The tool was useful for collecting data that guided conversations at workshops, helping community members to set shared priorities and identify potential solutions.

Conclusion: Although feasible and acceptable for rural communities to collect walkability data using a citizen science approach, and a useful way to prompt deeper discussion and drive priority setting, future digital walkability tools can be improved to better accommodate community data collection efforts. The inclusion of citizen and stakeholder perspectives in the design and collection of local data has the potential to be a powerful mechanism to support communities and stakeholders to engage in collective efforts and create environments that support walkability.