Western Australian Branch

Committee Details:

President: Emma Croager
Vice President:Laura Depczynski
Secretary: Krysten Blackford
Treasurer: Poonam Pannu

General Commitee Members
Jillian Abraham
Danica Keric
Jason Wells
Emma Douglas
Jessamie Godsell

Past events for 2013
Public Health Election Forum  Link to Public Health Election Forum flyer

Past Branch News & Advocacy

Report on the 2012 FIFO Forum: Understanding the impacts of Fly-in Fly-out work on health and wellbeing - Link to FIFO report
WA Branch Newsletter - August 2012
WA Branch Newsletter - June 2012
WA Branch Newsletter - February 2011

 Link to WA branch awards for 2012

Branch Forums

The WA Branch Forum provides an area for WA PHAA members to post information, respond to and discuss various articles of interest and to interact with fellow members.

Link to Forums (you will be required to login to access this area)

Advocacy Targets

The PHAA (WA) listed a range of advocacy targets in the last newsletter and asked for feedback from members about your priorities and any identified gaps. Thanks to those members who responded and your comments were incorporated. That list of advocacy issues has since been subject to a priority setting process where the following criteria were used to narrow down the issues for action:

• Public health importance of the issue
• Whether it was locally relevant
• Whether it was amenable to change or intervention in the next 12-24 months
• Whether it would be a duplication of others efforts
• If it gives an opportunity to promote the PHAA

The outcome from this process was the identification of 5 priority areas for advocacy, being:

• Childhood and adolescent obesity (environmental factors, physical activity and nutrition, breastfeeding, soft drinks
• Health Act lobbying-use of health impact assessments
• Land use planning and impact on public health
• Increasing spending on public health and public health research in WA and nationally; promoting public health as a priority
• Health inequalities

This list will not preclude us from addressing other advocacy issues either now or as the need arises throughout the year, and we will of course continue to support action in other areas through the rest of our work. The list does, however, recognize that we cannot cover all advocacy issues at once, so will give us some direction for our advocacy work over the next 1-2 years. We will also ensure that we maintain a focus on the nationally agreed priority areas.

The next stage of the process will be to develop the rationale for addressing each issue, then link this with existing national policies and develop targets and action plans. Members of the Branch Committee will take responsibility for leading action in each of these areas.

If you would like to contribute on any of these issues, please contact Melissa Stoneham.

Articles of Interest:

2006 - Letter of Support for WHO Collaborating Centre on Environmental Health Impact Assessment on the Biofuels Taskforce (PDF)

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