Culinary Nutrition: Teaching Kitchens to Achieve Health Outcomes

Established Supervisor: Associate Professor Sharon Croxford <Sharon.Croxford@acu.edu.au>
Emerging Supervisor: Dr. Emma Stirling

Project Description

Teaching kitchens provide opportunity for participants to increase their food and nutrition related knowledge and skills, through practical activities, and achieve positive health outcomes. Teaching kitchens can have many different delivery formats including fixed locations, mobile or online and can reach into communities to deliver interventions. The aim of this research project is to understand the need for a teaching kitchen delivering targeted culinary nutrition interventions in a central Melbourne local government area, with perspectives from local government, local health services, residents, practitioners, and academics used to inform a proposed model.

Description of the research internship opportunity

The candidate will have the option to participate in knowledge translation activities related to this research including preparing recommendations and reports. There are further opportunities within the discipline to work alongside and learn from researchers in Nutrition & Dietetics conducting ongoing research and participating in other research in culinary nutrition.

Mind the Gap – Understanding the Experiences of Allied Health Care in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes

Established Supervisor: Dr Evelyn Parr, MMIHR <evelyn.parr@acu.edu.au>
Emerging Supervisor: Dr Lachlan Mitchell, Nutrition and Dietetics, FHS
Third Supervisor: Dr Brooke Devlin (University of Queensland, external)

Project Description

Individuals with type 2 diabetes are regularly included in clinical trials which investigate dietary and/or exercise advice. However, there is a large gap between what is conducted in a clinical trial and what exists in the “real world” for people with type 2 diabetes. This project aims to capture the experience with and utilisation of health care services to manage type 2 diabetes, with regards to nutrition and physical activity/exercise. This project will involve qualitative interviews with individuals with type 2 diabetes, to help understand barriers and facilitators to making changes to behaviours to manage diabetes and inform future research.

Description of the research internship opportunity

Within the MMIHR, we are conducting multiple human research projects. We obtain information from participants through body composition scans, blood sampling and analysis, exercise tests and questionnaires, as well as dietary records. Through the honours project, the student will be immersed in the research team to obtain experience in our various projects from ethics application and participant recruitment through to data collection and final analysis. The internship opportunity would allow the student to build upon and broaden their research experience throughout their honours year.
 

Effectiveness of Implementation of an Ortho-geriatric Clinical Pathway for Fractured Neck of Femur Admissions 

Established Supervisor: A/Professor Adrienne Forsyth <Adrienne.Forsyth@acu.edu.au> 
Emerging Supervisor: Dr Lachlan Mitchell 
Third Supervisor: Dr Adam Walsh

Project Description

Elderly patients with fractured neck of femur are often malnourished on admission. Malnutrition can lead to delayed recovery, an increased length of stay, and increased risk of postoperative complications. Blanket referral to dietetic services and implementation of strategies to prevent or manage malnutrition enables access to dietetic services without the need for screening of this high-risk group. This project will assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the ortho-geriatric clinical pathway with a retrospective audit of dietetic interventions and nutrition outcomes.

Description of the research internship opportunity

Students engaged in this project will have the opportunity to develop research skills and experience through participation in ongoing related research activities at ACU and St Vincent’s Hospital. These include, but are not limited to, analysing food record data of completed studies, contributing to systematic reviews exploring related topics, collecting and analysing data for ongoing quality assessment studies, and contributing to the development and validation of new patient-reported experience measures. Further, there will be opportunity to collaborate with discipline staff on other ongoing projects which may afford the opportunity to gain experience across diverse methods and/or areas of expertise.