Melissa Savaglio

Monash University (Australia) · School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine

Issue addressed: The ASQ-TRAK, a strengths-based approach to developmental screening, has high acceptability and utility across varied Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts. While substantive knowledge translation has seen many services utilise ASQ-TRAK, we now need to move beyond distribution and support evidence-based scale-up to ensure...

Background There has been limited focus on understanding the barriers and facilitators to meeting the broader psychosocial needs of young people with mental illness from the perspectives of young people. This is required to advance the local evidence base and inform service design and development. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore yo...

Objective: This rapid review aimed to identify (1) key frameworks and components underpinning the effective implementation of Health and Social Care (HSC) programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children; and (2) participatory and co-design frameworks guiding the implementation. Methods: Four databases were searched for peer-reviewed...

Background There has been limited focus on understanding the barriers and facilitators to meeting the broader psychosocial needs of young people with mental illness, from the perspectives of young people themselves. This knowledge is required to advance the local evidence base and inform service design and development. Therefore, the aim of this qu...

Background Digital health interventions are effective for hypertension self-management, but a comparison of the effectiveness and implementation of the different modes of interventions is not currently available. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of SMS, smartphone application, and website interventions on improving blood pressure in ad...

Background Digital health interventions have shown promising results for the management of type 2 diabetes, but a comparison of the effectiveness and implementation of the different modes is not currently available. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the effectiveness of SMS, smartphone application, and website-based interventions on improving...

Health outcomes for young people living in residential out-of-home care are poor. There has been increased emphasis on the need to prioritize preventative support and upskill residential care workers to better meet young people's health needs. The aim of this study was to examine the food quality and physical activity environment in residential car...

Digital health interventions that specifically target working women across the preconception, pregnancy and postpartum (PPP) life stages may address the unique barriers to engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviours and self-care during this life phase. This paper describes the development of a workplace digital health intervention to promote healthy...

Background The Australian evidence supporting the effectiveness of home visitation programs for families experiencing disdavantage is mixed. These inconsistent findings could be attributed to the varied ways in which home visitation programs are implemented, and a lack of evaluation. Objective This qualitative paper explores the barriers and facil...

Pregnancy is a high-risk period for excess gestational weight gain and subsequent obesity development. Antenatal lifestyle interventions are prioritised to optimise weight, with current evidence demonstrating efficacy and associated reduction in risk of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. Yet, evidence to guide the field from efficacy-based to...

Objective No synthesis of the Australian evidence regarding targeted prevention and early intervention for mental health concerns among young children exists. This review aimed to (1) describe the types of targeted community-based mental health programmes evaluated in Australia to support children aged 1–9 years exhibiting internalising and/or exte...

Programs for families where children are at risk aim to develop the conditions for safety and care that is rewarding, loving, stable and secure. Understanding what leads to outcomes is less clear, and realist research methods are a useful in unpacking this. The Social Care Theorising Model informed the collection of focus group data from practition...

Preconception health is a key determinant of pregnancy and offspring outcomes, but challenges reaching people during preconception are frequently cited by health professionals. This article highlights the workplace as an important setting for promoting equitable access to preconception health-related information and education to support optimal wel...

Issues: The transgenerational impacts of colonisation-inclusive of dispossession, intergenerational trauma, racism, social and economic exclusion and marginalisation-places First Nations peoples in Australia at significant risk of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and its associated harms. However, knowledge and evidence supporting community-based...

Australia has undergone significant youth mental health reform over the past 10 years, leading to numerous studies examining the effects of community-based mental health care programs for Australian youth. However, no synthesis of this literature currently exists. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to: (1) describe the types of community-based...

First responders are exposed to repetitive work‐related trauma and, thus, are at risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Eye‐movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy intervention designed to treat symptoms of posttraumatic stress. We conducted a systematic review to examine the viability of EMDR among fir...

Purpose To reduce rates of homelessness, recent efforts have been directed toward developing non-conditional supported housing programs that prioritize the delivery of housing support and individual services, without tenancy conditions (i.e. maintaining sobriety and adhering to mental health treatment). As promising as these programs are, findings...

International evidence supports the effect of intensive family preservation and reunification services in preventing children’s placement in out-of-home care (OOHC). Evidence within Australia is scarce. This protocol paper describes a hybrid effectiveness-implementation evaluation of the Victorian Family Preservation and Reunification (FPR) Respons...

Weight stigma is an important issue colliding with obesity-related policies; both have population health and social impacts. Our aim was to conduct a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature that combined the concepts of stigma, obesity, and policy. We searched PsycINFO, Medline, Scopus, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed articles amalga...

Extensive research on traumatic life experiences reveals how healthy development can be derailed and brain architecture altered by excessive or prolonged activation of the body's stress response, impacting health, mental health, learning, behavior and relationships. Schools offer a unique environment to prevent and counter the impacts of childhood...

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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrinological disorder affecting women of reproductive age, affecting 8–13% in this group. Women with PCOS are more likely to have excess BMI, which in turn exacerbates the symptoms of PCOS in these women. The latest evidence-based guideline recommends lifestyle management as the first-line tre...

Care‐experienced young people demonstrate significantly poor physical, social and mental health outcomes during and beyond their time in care, yet they have rarely been consulted or included in research examining their health needs to date. This qualitative paper explores care‐experienced young people's perceptions of health in care, including acce...

Foster and kinship carers face unique and complex challenges in caring for Australia’s most vulnerable children. It is therefore necessary to ensure that home-based carers are adequately upskilled and supported to promote the health of children in their care. The aim of this paper was to better understand the barriers to developing healthy lifestyl...

A high prevalence of maltreatment, abuse, neglect and the onset of subsequent trauma has been well-documented among both young people with disability and young people residing in foster and kinship care. However, no uniform policies or guidelines currently exist for the delivery of trauma-informed models of care to build the capacity of foster and...

Young women of reproductive age (18–25 years) often seek and engage with health-related information via social media. However, the extent to which this population group seek preconception and pregnancy-related information has not been explored. Therefore, this study aimed to: (1) examine the proportion, type, and frequency of social media use to se...

In recent years, youth mentoring programmes (YMPs) have received significant attention as an intervention tool delivered to young people with the aim of fostering positive psychosocial development. The aim of the current study was to conduct a needs assessment that examined the current trends in YMPs across Australia to inform their implementation....

We read with great interest the article by Ceulemans et al (2021)1 on maternal mental health issues during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We would like to provide some additional insights from our recent interviews with 12 postpartum women during the pandemic to triangulate and support these quantitative findings. Interviews were conducted by research diet...

The recruitment of sufficient volunteers is a key challenge that many non-profit organisations face. There remains a lack of research exploring the implementation of best practice processes to recruit appropriate volunteers into relevant programmes. This paper details the processes underpinning a volunteer recruitment strategy for a community-based...

Children in care (CiC) experience poorer health outcomes than their same-aged peers without an experience of care. Despite growing recognition of the importance of listening to the voices of children and young people (YP), to date, the voices of CiC are not well represented in research examining their health. This study aimed to explore the experie...

Background Interventions supporting older adults’ transition from hospital to home can address geriatric needs. Yet this evidence base is fragmented. This review describes transitional interventions that provide pre- and post-discharge support for older adults and evaluates their implementation and effectiveness in improving health and well-being....

Whilst advancing outcomes for young people transitioning from out-of-home care is a national priority, no synthesis of Australian interventions that support their transition from care and into independence currently exists. The aim of this systematic scoping review was to examine the characteristics of such interventions delivered in Australia and...

Introduction People with serious mental illness (SMI) often fail to receive adequate treatment. To provide a higher level of support, mental health systems have been reformed substantially to integrate mental healthcare into the community. MyCare is one such community-based mental health model of care. This paper describes the study protocol of a c...

Young people who leave Out-of-Home Care (OoHC) are a significantly vulnerable cohort. No after-care support program to date has been completely informed by young people and their care team. This scoping study explored the perspectives of young people and their wider care team on: (1) challenges surrounding the transition process; and (2) how these...

Although numerous studies have examined the effects of community-based mental health care programs in Australia, no synthesis of this literature exists. This systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature described the types of community-based mental health care programs delivered and evaluated in Australia in the past 20 years, and evaluat...

Background and objectives: Older adults with cognitive impairment are vulnerable to frequent hospital admissions and emergency department presentations. The aim of this study was to use a codesign approach to develop MyCare Ageing, a programme that will train volunteers to provide psychosocial support to older people with dementia and/or delirium...

This research was undertaken on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to Elders of the past, present and emerging, and also acknowledge the generous contribution to this research made by women and their families and Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) staff. Aboriginal Cradle to Kinder (AC2K) is a ho...

Background: Since 2014, Tasmania, Australia has experienced unprecedented rates of hospitalisations related to mental-health issues. To address reliance on such acute-based care, government funding was invested into enhancing community- based care, which in turn, led to the development of MyCare. This paper represents the initial phase of a larger...

There are strong imperatives for young people living in out-of-home care (OoHC) to exercise their right to participate in health-related decision making and health care practices to foster better health outcomes. This systematic review aimed to explore if and how the voices of young people in OoHC are represented in research examining their health....

Problematic eating interventions targeting young people living in out-of-home care (OoHC) have been neglected. Therefore, the aim of this narrative literature review was threefold: (1) to identify the state of the literature regarding interventions that address subclinical and clinical problematic eating behaviours among young people in OoHC; (2) t...

Introduction: Fifty percent of Australian women enter pregnancy overweight or obese. Unfortunately, few women receive weight management advice from health professionals during pregnancy. The aim of this study was to investigate current midwifery curricula from Australian universities to identify strengths and deficits in the teaching of preconcept...