The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has sharpened our focus on unnecessary health care. Now more than ever we need to avoid unnecessary interventions that may cause harm and waste resources that could be better used elsewhere for those who will experience a genuine benefit. [...]
The majority of small low-risk papillary thyroid cancers (sPTCs) are treated surgically, rather than by active surveillance. Patient and clinician preference for surgery may be partially driven by the use of cancer terminology. Some experts propose that changing terminology would better communicate the indolent nature [...]
Many of the groups in the Australian population who are at the greatest risk from COVID-19 – including those with chronic disease – are also the least likely to understand the public health messages aimed at keeping them and the broader community safe from the [...]
Delayed prescribing is a promising strategy to manage patient requests for unnecessary tests and treatments. The purpose of this study was to explore general practitioner (GP) and patient views of three communication tools (Overdiagnosis Leaflet, Dialogue Sheet and 'Wait-and-see' Note) to support delayed prescribing of [...]
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has rapidly been adopted to deliver healthcare services around the world. To date, research has not investigated how people's experience with telehealth services compare to traditional in-person visits during the pandemic in Australia. The object of this study [...]
Virtual Conference - 3-5 February 2021 Registration information
Low health literacy is associated with poorer health outcomes. A key strategy to address health literacy is a universal precautions approach, which recommends using health-literate design for all health interventions, not just those targeting people with low health literacy. This approach has advantages: Health literacy [...]
Public cooperation to practice preventive health behaviours is essential to manage the transmission of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. We aimed to investigate beliefs about COVID-19 diagnosis, transmission and prevention that have the potential to impact the uptake of recommended public health strategies.
It is unclear how people with hypertension are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic given their increased risk, and whether targeted public health strategies are needed. This retrospective case-control study compared people with hypertension to matched healthy controls during COVID-19 lockdown, to determine whether they have [...]
The current suppression strategy for COVID-19 in Australia is dependent on people getting tested and self-isolating while they have COVID-19 symptoms. However, there is very little research on the behaviours and behavioural barriers involved in getting tested, both in Australia and worldwide, despite there being [...]