Join Our Next Webinar Highlighting Ethics and Reciprocity in Indigenous Health Research

17 February 2023

MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program will hold a webinar on ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research – Ethics and Reciprocity’ on 27 February 2023. This is the next in a series of webinars on Indigenous health to coincide with Round 3 of the TTRA Research Projects funding opportunity, which will support diabetes and cardiovascular disease projects that address Indigenous specific priority areas.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research ethics is an important part of research projects that involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. During the webinar, attendees will hear from experts with extensive experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research ethics from both an ethics committee and a researcher perspective. They will explore researchers’ ethical obligations, when you need to submit to an Aboriginal Human Research Ethics Committee, the importance of cultural safety in research design, and reciprocity.

Register now for the webinar on 27 February at 1:00-2:15pm AEDT.

Passionate public health advocate for Indigenous communities

Dr Summer May Finlay is a Yorta Yorta woman who grew up on Awabakal/Worimi country (West Lake Macquarie) and is a passionate advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, working in several public health fields including social marketing, communications research and policy. She has worked for a range of organisations in the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health, not-for profit, university and for-profit sectors. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong.

Dr Finlay is Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW Ethics Committee, Co-Chair of the World Federation of Public Health Associations Indigenous Working Group and Deputy Chair of Thirrili, Australia’s only Indigenous suicide postvention organisation. She was previously Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Vice President for the Public Health Association of Australia and was the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Special Interest Group Co-Convener. She has received three awards from the Public Health Association of Australia for her work in public health and Indigenous health.

Contributing to improving health and educational outcomes

Professor Jenni Judd has lived and worked in the Public Sector in Education and Health in the Northern Territory and Queensland for the past 30 years. She holds an Adjunct Professorial Research Fellow position at James Cook University and has been at Central Queensland University working part-time as a Professorial Research Fellow with the Graduate Research School and First Nations Academy in Supervision.

Professor Judd has received over $5.9M in grants, including NHMRC and ARC, in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health in Pandemic Influenza and Strongyloides. Currently, she is Chief Investigator of an NHMRC Commissioning Evaluation in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Wellbeing Programs. As a technical writer, she worked with the Indigenous NHMRC Ethics Working group in 2016 to prepare an ethics document for public consultation.

She is involved in supporting completion and supervision of Higher Degree Research students in Public Health, Health Promotion and Education, including several First Nations scholars. Her interest in Ethics with Indigenous projects and in particular, reciprocity, has been ongoing with specific emphasis on self-determination and the importance of working with First Nations peoples in this process.

Other Webinars in the Series
The first webinar in the series was held in November 2022 and focused on ‘Principles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research and engaging meaningfully with community.’ Watch the recording of the webinar here or listen to it on the MTPConnect Podcast.

TTRA Round 3 Open for Applications

TTRA’s third funding round for research projects is open for applications until Friday 28 April 2023 at 4:00pm AEST. Further information about the application process, project eligibility and selection criteria can be found here.