Two public health researchers awarded prestigious Premier’s Awards for Health and Medical Research
Winners - Dr Rongbin Xu and Dr Rob Mitchell.
Health and climate researcher Dr Rongbin Xu and emergency medicine physician Dr Rob Mitchell from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine have been awarded 2023-24 Premier’s Awards for Health and Medical Research in recognition of their outstanding PhD research.
Dr Xu received the Public Health Researcher Award and the prestigious Premier’s Excellence Award as the top award winner across five award categories for his research on the health and epigenetic impacts of climate change-related environmental factors (CCREF). Dr Mitchell received the Health Services Researcher Award for his research into the effectiveness of the Interagency Integrated Triage Tool (IITT) for emergency departments in low and middle-income countries across the Pacific.
Climate change and extreme weather events are major 21st-century public health concerns. In Australia, recent effects of climate change include unprecedented wildfires, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and the spread of climate-sensitive infectious diseases. Dr Xu’s research focused on the primary health impacts through mortality and major morbidity, and the epigenetic impacts, such as changes to genes in response to temperature, landscape fire air pollution (LFAP) and the availability of green space.
Dr Rongbin Xu
Dr Rongbin Xu and Hon. Ben Carroll MP.
Dr Xu’s research has expanded knowledge of the health impacts of climate change and the identified populations and communities most vulnerable to those impacts. His work can potentially inform future targeted public health interventions and translate into public health policies and practices.
Dr Xu said he was delighted to receive the awards. “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century,” he said. “I am honoured to work on this urgent and important public health issue. The award is not just for me, but a recognition of all researchers working on climate change and health. I will keep working with my colleagues to generate more scientific evidence on the health impacts of climate change, and provide more solutions to protect public health against climate change.”
Dr Rob Mitchell
Dr Rob Mitchell.
Dr Mitchell’s research evaluated the acceptability and performance of IITT in the Pacific region both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also examined the value of triage as a component of Pacific pandemic responses and the impact of triage implementation on clinical outcomes in low—and middle-income country emergency departments.
Overall, Dr Mitchell found that the tool can be reliably and efficiently applied by healthcare workers, and its predictive validity is within the performance range of other triage instruments. The research also identified that the system is highly regarded by emergency care clinicians and represents a safe and effective approach to triage in resource-limited settings. Dr Mitchell’s research has generated new knowledge regarding the IITT and has also resulted in the introduction of novel triage, patient flow and data management processes in several Pacific hospitals. As a result of this research, the IITT is being adopted across Papua New Guinea and in other Pacific Island countries.
Dr Mitchell said that he was very happy to receive the award. “It was an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Papua New Guinean colleagues to undertake this collaborative research,” he said. “By working together, we have been able to implement and evaluate innovative approaches to the delivery of timely and quality emergency care.”
PhD candidate Dr Luke Dawson, also from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, was among the shortlisted nominees in the Health Services Researcher Award category for his PhD research into care pathways for chest pain. Dr Dawson's research provided a comprehensive overview of existing care pathways for acute chest pain, associated costs, and how this can be improved.
Congratulations to Dr Xu, Dr Mitchell and Dr Dawson on their achievements.
Find out more about the Premier’s Awards for Health and Medical Research.
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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