Australia is a huge country. While 70 per cent of the population lives in cities, the other 30 per cent lives in rural and regional areas.
That 30 has markedly poorer health outcomes and there has been insufficient investment in research to improve the health of this 30 per cent of our population. Currently the National Health and Medical Research Council only allocates 2.4 per cent towards research that specifically aims to deliver health benefits to people who live in rural or remote Australia.
Translational research centres in Australia have brought a new opportunity to closely partner medical researchers with health services including hospitals, community and primary care. Australia’s two NHMRC accredited Centres for Innovation in Regional Health: the Central Australia Academic Health Science Network and NSW Regional Health Partners took the initiative to organise a meeting of those working in rural research and those passionate about its importance.
The Spinifex Symposium held in Alice Springs on 12-13 November 2019 was effective in reaching consensus on the important issues and of the value of a national alliance for Rural Health and Medical Research to improve medical research outcomes and impact for rural Australia. The subsequent Spinifex Network embodies that alliance.
The role of telehealth in its widest sense has been increasingly a focus of health services andimplementation research as a valuable mode of rural service
Thank you to all of our members who nominated a topic for the Spinifex Network Rapid Reviews. We received a total of 53 nominations spanning
Nominations extended: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and membership feedback, we have extended the timeline for nomination of topics for rapid review until Monday 6th April. This will
Due to the impact of COVID-19 on many organisations, a decision has been made to extend the call for nominations for topics for rapid review