Working in Adelaide
Most of the posts I've shared have focused on the culture and travel experiences we've enjoyed since getting to Australia 5 months ago. I thought I would share a bit about the work I'm doing here as well.
My Fulbright research project is focused on testing some health warnings about tobacco use in pregnancy to examine if more positively oriented messages about the benefits of quitting smoking before/during pregnancy help increase motivation compared to the typical fear-based messages that highlight the risks of smoking. I've been working in this area for the past few years, and have found that the positive messages are often more motivational to women who have less confidence in their ability to successfully quit smoking. I have a wonderful research partner, Sharon, who is faculty at Flinders University, who has been essential to help me get this research off the ground.
I've spent a few months getting permission from the Flinders Ethics board, wrangling some technical issues with my specialty computer that an infrared camera to capture people's visual attention to the health messages - this eye tracking tech is finicky and was having a load of tech issues that involved hours of support between Boston, Columbus, and here! Once we did get the project ready to go, I've had lots of challenges in enrolling people for the project as it is a very small number of women who smoke cigarettes here. Nevertheless, I've been able to get about half the sample recruited, and have a plan for how to get the rest concluded in the coming weeks.
Other than my specific project, I've also had the pleasure of working with the state health department that is focused on health promotion to use my eye tracking tech to better refine a social media campaign promoting walking as a viable exercise for very sedentary people. It was great fun to work with their team and help support this campaign. I've also given two Grand Rounds lectures to faculty at Flinders Medical Center at Royal Adelaide Hospital talking to them about how to promote COVID-19 vaccination to their hesitant patients. I've had some really interesting conversations about strategies to get the unvaccinated to vaccinate.
Carnegie Mellon University Australia, my Fulbright co-sponsor, also asked me to share these thoughts on vaccination hesitancy on their blog as well. I gave a talk to the CMU-Aus students last week with an Australian policy expert (see below); he and I are meeting this week to chat about potential collaborations on how to use research evidence in tobacco policy decision making.
There's more work to do, and I've been cultivating relationships so that I can return and continue some of my tobacco control research here in future. It's been incredibly fun, interesting, challenging, and exciting to work with folks in research, medicine and in practice during our time here.
