Stephanie R. Partridge

Stephanie R. Partridge
The University of Sydney

PhD, B Sc (Hons I), Dietitian, APD

About

158
Publications
28,904
Reads
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2,738
Citations
Introduction
Associate Professor Stephanie Partridge is a public health nutrition researcher at the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at The University of Sydney. She holds a prestigious Sydney Horizon Fellowship, exploring the use of digital technology to improve adolescent health. She was awarded the 2023 Emerging Leader in Science Eureka Prize and oversees multiple funded projects.
Additional affiliations
March 2015 - December 2017
The University of Sydney
Position
  • Research Officer
Description
  • Healthier Choices Catering Guidelines Project and the State of Health and Wellness of Australian Young Adults
January 2015 - present
The University of Sydney
Position
  • Primary supervisor for dietetic student research projects
Description
  • Topics: young people, obesity prevention and dietary interventions
October 2014 - present
The University of Sydney
Position
  • Lecturer
Description
  • Topics: Public health nutrition, research methods
Education
August 2013 - April 2017
The University of Sydney
Field of study
  • Public Health Nutrition
March 2008 - November 2011

Publications

Publications (158)
Article
By involving stakeholders to identify issues, co-design facilitates the creation of solutions aligned with the community’s unique needs and values. However, genuine co-design with consumers across all stages of nutrition intervention research remain uncommon. The aim of this review was to examine notable examples of interventions to improve diets i...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Young women spend 50 min daily on social media (SM); thus, SM platforms are promising for health interventions. This study tested the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of the co-designed SM intervention the Daily Health Coach (DHC). The DHC is a 3-month healthy lifestyles intervention programme, targeting eating, physical activity, a...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Australian breast cancer survivors are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, partly due to behavioural risk factors, including unhealthy diet and physical inactivity. Guidelines recommend health promotion delivered by general practitioners (GPs), but resources (ie, time and funding) are limited. Text message interv...
Article
Full-text available
Background Online food delivery (OFD) platforms offer easy access to an abundance of energy-dense and nutrient-poor takeaway foods and may exacerbate existing unhealthy food environments. Efforts to improve population diets include a range of policy recommendations focused on improving the healthiness of food environments; however, the way in which...
Article
Introduction Worldwide, young people are increasingly engaged in participation and decision‐making initiatives regarding issues that affect their lives through advisory groups, representative councils, advocacy and activism. Emerging evidence suggests that these initiatives may have an impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the youth involved...
Article
Issue addressed: Food environments surrounding schools have a strong influence on the adolescent's food choices. Moreover, the prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases is higher in regional than metropolitan areas in Australia. Understanding school food environments in these different settings is crucial for informing future strategies to impro...
Article
Full-text available
Background Digital, or eHealth, interventions are highly promising approaches to help adolescents improve their health behaviours and reduce their risk of chronic disease. However, they often have low uptake and retention. There is also a paucity of high-quality research into the predictors of eHealth engagement, and a lack of studies that have sys...
Article
Adolescence is a high‐risk life stage for obesity. Digital strategies are needed to prevent and manage obesity among adolescents. We assessed if digital health interventions are contributing to disparities in obesity outcomes and assessed the adequacy of reporting of digital health equity criteria across four levels of influence within the digital...
Article
Adolescent obesity continues to be a public health challenge with poor quality diets contributing to its etiology. As part of the process to plan health promotion and policy interventions, understanding adolescents perceived facilitators and barriers to healthful eating is important. An integrative convergent mixed‐methods systematic review was use...
Article
Full-text available
Background Online food delivery services (OFDS) enable individuals to conveniently access foods from any deliverable location. The increased accessibility to foods may have implications on the consumption of healthful or unhealthful foods. Concerningly, previous research suggests that OFDS offer an abundance of energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods,...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a major global health burden, particularly affecting adolescents due to preventable risk factors. However, adolescents are frequently overlooked in NCD prevention efforts that directly impact them. This study aimed to evaluate adolescents' perspectives, experiences, perceptions, and preferences regard...
Article
Youth advisory groups (YAGs) are super teams of young people who help scientists understand what is important to people their age. In our study, we wanted to find out how being involved in a YAG benefits young people and improves scientific research. We found that when young people joined a YAG for 1 year, they gained leadership and problem-solving...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Preventive interventions are needed to provide targeted health support to adolescents to improve health behaviors. Engaging adolescents in preventive interventions remains a challenge, highlighting the need for innovative recruitment strategies. Given adolescents’ lives are intertwined with digital technologies, attention should be focus...
Article
Background Preventive interventions are needed to provide targeted health support to adolescents to improve health behaviors. Engaging adolescents in preventive interventions remains a challenge, highlighting the need for innovative recruitment strategies. Given adolescents’ lives are intertwined with digital technologies, attention should be focus...
Preprint
Background - Amidst a rapid growth in youth participation initiatives globally, such as government-initiated advisory groups, local representative councils, and youth-led activism groups, it is important to understand how being involved in youth participation roles can affect youth mental health and wellbeing. This scoping review comprehensively sy...
Article
Issues Addressed Promoting public health messages in adolescence may influence future health outcomes. A better understanding of what influences adolescent engagement with public health issues is needed. Methods Adolescents aged 13–19 years from New South Wales, Australia, were recruited via study advertisements to participate in an online focus g...
Article
Food environments surrounding secondary schools are a known influence on the purchasing and consumption habits of adolescents(1). Understanding their obesogenic potential is important for informing strategies to create more healthful food environments for adolescents, particularly for those living in regional areas, and is a key component of Austra...
Article
Food environments around secondary schools are a strong influence on adolescents’ food purchasing habits1. We conducted a repeat cross-sectional study using Google Street View to examine school food environments in regional and metropolitan NSW, Australia over 17-years. Findings showed that unhealthful food outlets such as fast-food franchises, con...
Article
Diets low in vegetables are a main contributor to the health burden experienced by Australians living in rural communities. Given the ubiquity of smartphones and access to the Internet, digital interventions may offer an accessible delivery model for a dietary intervention in rural communities. However, no digital interventions to address low veget...
Article
Full-text available
Background Chronic disease risk factors are increasing amongst adolescents, globally. Digital health prevention programs, which provide education and information to reduce chronic disease risk factors need to be equitable and accessible for all. For their success, multiple highly engaged stakeholders should be involved in development and implementa...
Article
Full-text available
Background A quality diet and an active lifestyle are both important cornerstones of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. However, despite their interlinked effects on metabolic health, the 2 behaviors are rarely considered jointly, particularly within the context of CVD prevention. We examined the independent, interactive, and joint associatio...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Online food delivery services (OFDS) enable individuals to conveniently access foods from any deliverable location. The increased accessibility to foods may have implications on the consumption of healthful or unhealthful foods. Concerningly, previous research suggests that OFDS offer an abundance of energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods,...
Article
Full-text available
Objective It is unknown how well menu-labelling schemes that enforce the display of kilojoule (kJ) labelling at point-of-sale, has been implemented on Online Food Delivery services (OFDs) in Australia. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of kJ labelling on the online menus of large food outlets with more than 20 locations in the state or 50...
Article
Full-text available
Social media platforms may be promising intervention tools to address the nutrition literacy and associated health behaviours of young women. We aimed to co-design a lifestyle intervention on social media targeting eating, physical activity, and social wellbeing that is evidence-based, acceptable, and engaging for young women aged 18-24 years. The...
Article
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Our comment discusses our experience establishing a youth advisory group focused on chronic disease prevention research. The comment highlights three key learnings: the need for researchers to adapt their working style, the importance of redefining the power dynamics, and disrupting traditional research structures to align with co-researcher engage...
Article
Full-text available
This study protocol discusses the co-design and co-development of a social media health promotion program for young women. The program aims to disseminate evidence-based health information and promote healthy behaviours among young women aged 18-24 years. The evidence-base for social media interventions is explored, with examples of successful heal...
Article
Full-text available
Food accessibility was considerably impacted by restrictions during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, leading to growth in the online food retail sector, which offered contact‐free delivery. This systematic review aimed to assess the change in use of online food retail platforms during COVID‐19. The secondary aim was to identify die...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Diets low in vegetables are a main contributor to the health burden experienced by young adults in rural communities. Digital health interventions provide an accessible delivery model that can be personalised to meet the diverse preferences of young adults. A personalisable digital vegetable intake intervention (Veg4Me) was codesigned...
Article
Full-text available
Background Diets low in vegetables are a main contributor to the health burden experienced by Australians living in rural communities. Given the ubiquity of smartphones and access to the Internet, digital interventions may offer an accessible delivery model for a dietary intervention in rural communities. However, no digital interventions to addres...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Innovative health promotion strategies are crucial for enhancing global quality of life and curbing premature deaths. Digital health promotion is particularly impactful for young individuals often using internet-connected devices. Collaborative methodologies in digital intervention research offer insights into supporting youth during k...
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Background Adolescents are navigating a period of rapid growth and development within an era of digitalization. Mobile phone ownership among adolescents is nearly ubiquitous, and this provides an opportunity to harness text messaging to promote a healthy lifestyle and reduce chronic disease risk factors. Inclusion of adolescents throughout the desi...
Article
Full-text available
Background Mobile ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a powerful tool for collecting real-time and contextual data from individuals. As our reliance on online technologies to increase convenience accelerates, the way we access food is changing. Online food delivery (OFD) services may further encourage unhealthy food consumption habits, given t...
Article
Full-text available
Background Youth Advisory Groups (YAGs) represent a promising method to engage adolescents in research of relevance to them and their peers. However, YAGs are rarely implemented or evaluated in chronic disease prevention research. The aims of this study were firstly, to evaluate the effect of participation in a 12-month YAG on adolescents’ leadersh...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: A quality diet and an active lifestyle are both important cornerstones of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. However, despite their interlinked effects on metabolic health, the two behaviours are rarely jointly considered, particularly within the context of CVD prevention. We examined the independent, interactive and joint associa...
Article
Introduction: People living with cardiac and respiratory disease require improved post-hospital support that is readily available and efficient. Hypothesis/Aims: Support via text message alongside cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation (rehab) improves clinical, lifestyle and attendance. Aim was to test effectiveness of an automated, semi-personalise...
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Full-text available
There is growing recognition that young people should be given opportunities to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, such as advisory groups, representative councils, advocacy or activism. Positive youth development theory and sociopolitical development theory propose pathways through which youth participation can influence mental...
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Full-text available
Research has established associations between poor mental health and lifestyle risk behaviors among adolescents, yet gaps exist in understanding whether digital health interventions for adolescents targeting these behaviors will improve mental health and wellbeing. This study aimed to evaluate how effective digital health interventions targeting li...
Article
Full-text available
Background: COVID-19 lockdowns caused widespread closures of supportive care services for breast cancer survivors in Australia. In a randomized controlled trial, our team's lifestyle-focused, evidence-based SMS text message support program (EMPOWER-SMS COVID-19) was found to be acceptable and useful for breast cancer survivors, and it was ready fo...
Article
Full-text available
The Eating Disorders In weight-related Therapy (EDIT) Collaboration brings together data from randomised controlled trials of behavioural weight management interventions to identify individual participant risk factors and intervention strategies that contribute to eating disorder risk. We present a protocol for a systematic review and individual pa...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Mobile ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a powerful tool for collecting real-time and contextual data from individuals. As our reliance on online technologies to increase convenience accelerates, the way we access food is changing. Online food delivery (OFD) services may further encourage unhealthy food consumption habits, given t...
Article
Full-text available
Background Digital interventions may help address low vegetable intake in adults, however there is limited understanding of the features that make them effective. We systematically reviewed digital interventions to increase vegetable intake to 1) describe the effectiveness of the interventions; 2) examine links between effectiveness and use of co-d...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Adolescent consumer engagement is widely accepted, with global calls to meaningfully involve adolescents for effective and tailored policy and guideline development. However, it is still unclear if and how adolescents are engaged. The aim of this review was to determine if and how adolescents meaningfully participate in policy and guid...
Article
Full-text available
Background: COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns led to the closure of most in-person pulmonary rehabilitation programs in Australia. Text message programs are effective for delivering health support to aid the self-management of people with chronic diseases. This study aimed to evaluate the implementation of a six-month pre-post text message support progr...
Preprint
BACKGROUND COVID-19 lockdowns caused widespread closures of supportive care services for breast cancer survivors in Australia. In a randomized controlled trial, our team’s lifestyle-focused, evidence-based SMS text message support program (EMPOWER-SMS COVID-19) was found to be acceptable and useful for breast cancer survivors, and it was ready for...
Preprint
Full-text available
The Eating Disorders In weight-related Therapy (EDIT) Collaboration brings together data from randomised controlled trials of behavioural weight management interventions to identify individual participant risk factors and intervention strategies that contribute to eating disorder risk. We present a protocol for a systematic review and individual pa...
Article
Full-text available
Online food delivery (OFD) platforms have become increasingly popular due to advanced technology, which is changing the way consumers purchase food prepared outside of the home. There is limited research investigating the healthiness of the digital food environment and its influence on consumer choice and dietary behaviours. This study is the first...
Article
Full-text available
Adolescence and young adulthood (AYA) are formative life stages, second only to the first 1000 days. Yet young people have historically been 'forgotten' in our health system. Major health risk factors, like adolescent obesity, have largely been left untreated, resulting in significant chronic disease burdens and health costs later in life. In Austr...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Reducing lifestyle risk behaviors among adolescents depends on access to age-appropriate health promotion information. Chatbots-computer programs designed to simulate conversations with human users-have the potential to deliver health information to adolescents to improve their lifestyle behaviors and support behavior change, but resea...
Preprint
Full-text available
BACKGROUND Reducing lifestyle risk behaviors among adolescents depends on access to age-appropriate health promotion information. Chatbots—computer programs designed to simulate conversations with human users—have the potential to deliver health information to adolescents to improve their lifestyle behaviors and support behavior change, but researc...
Article
Full-text available
Background Adolescence presents a window of opportunity to establish good nutrition and physical activity behaviours to carry throughout the life course. Adolescents are at risk of developing cardiovascular and other chronic diseases due to poor the complex interplay of physical and mental health lifestyle risk factors. Text messaging is adolescent...
Article
Full-text available
Background: in this protocol we outline a method of working alongside Aboriginal communities to learn about and facilitate improvement in the oral health habits in Aboriginal adolescents. By facilitating positive oral health in Aboriginal adolescents, we hope to achieve lifelong improvement in oral health and general wellbeing. Methods: this pap...
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Full-text available
Mobile-based ecological momentary assessment (mEMA) offers a novel method for dietary assessment and may reduce recall bias and participant burden. This review evaluated mEMA methodology and the feasibility, acceptability and validity as a dietary assessment method in young people. Five databases were searched from January 2008 to September 2021 fo...
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Aim: To determine the proportion of research projects funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council research funding from 2014 to 2021 that aimed to understand or improve dietary behaviours for at-risk populations in Australia and estimate the proportion of total funding allocated during this period. M...
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Full-text available
PURPOSE Ongoing supportive care using electronic health (eHealth) interventions has the potential to provide remote support and improve health outcomes for patients with breast cancer. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of eHealth interventions on patient-reported outcomes (quality of life [QOL], self-efficacy, and mental or physical he...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, feasibility and acceptability of a co-designed lifestyle-focused text message intervention (EMPOWER-SMS) for breast cancer survivors’ self-efficacy, quality of life (QOL), mental (anxiety, depression, stress) and physical (endocrine therapy medication adherence, physical activity, BMI) heal...
Preprint
Full-text available
BACKGROUND Digital health interventions, including apps and web-based services, are on the rise due to their facilitated access to target groups. The constant evolution of technology calls for participatory research methodologies to understand youth expectations and use. The creative and collaborative nature of co-design allows for active integrati...
Article
Full-text available
Background Digital health interventions, including apps and web-based services, are on the rise due to their facilitated access to target groups. The constant evolution of technology calls for participatory research methodologies to understand youth expectations and the use of technology. The creative and collaborative nature of co-design allows fo...
Article
Full-text available
Issue addressed: Obesity is a significant health challenge facing adolescents. There is a critical need for Government action to support all adolescents to improve risk factors for obesity. This study critically appraised initiatives, guidelines and policies (termed "strategies") from local health districts (LHDs), specialty health Networks and Pr...
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Full-text available
Energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods, otherwise known as junk foods, have never been more accessible and available. Young people are bombarded with unhealthy junk-food choices daily, and this can lead to life-long dietary habits that are difficult to undo. In this article, we explore the scientific evidence behind both the short-term and long-term imp...