A University of Wollongong researcher has been awarded $840,000 for a "first-of-its-kind" project looking at the health and wellbeing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Fellow UOW researcher, Distinguished Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld will also get about $750,000 of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding, to help him enable next generation radiotherapy for cancer patients.
Dr Chris Degeling, a Senior Fellow at UOW's Australian Centre for Health Engagement research, though is focusing on the societal awareness and societal impacts of COVID-19, and unavoidable uncertainties about how best to manage transmission risks.
"The pandemic has disrupted established perceptions of infection control and challenged confidence in experts and health authorities, resulting in public and professional controversy," Dr Degeling said.
"This research aims to develop better preparedness and control strategies, by promoting social awareness and greater trust within and between expert groups and the broader community."
The NHMRC's about $840,000 funding to this project will support two under-researched pandemic planning dimensions:
- Social determinants of outbreak preparedness and how to manage differing priorities and;
- Polarising discourses among key stakeholders.
The researchers involved in the project will work with the general public, policymakers, essential service providers and clinicians to map the structures, cultures and networks of key healthcare and other organisations relevant to effective pandemic response.
"This project is the first-of-its-kind in the world and will place Australia as a leader in considering the implications of social preparedness and developing evidence-based interventions that optimise the health and wellbeing of society," Dr Degeling said.
Meantime Professor Rozenfeld, the director of UOW's Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP), will use the money to help develop a new microdosimeter to measure the physical radiation dose at all angles and an important property called linear energy transfer (LET), which determines the biological effect of a particular proton beam.
Radiotherapy has been the foundation of cancer treatment for over 100 years and the technology is continually improving.
"Using Proton Therapy, which is a new method of radiotherapy using particles instead of X-rays, the process will allow the safe use of biologically optimised treatment to kill more cancer cells while sparing surrounding normal tissue," Professor Rozenfeld said.
"The advantage of protons is that they can be made to stop at a particular depth in the patient and treat less normal tissue than conventional radiotherapy."
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Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
