RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIPS
The DEEP Team has been awarded the Curtin Health Science Summer Research Scholarship for three consecutive years, taking on several research projects and producing various outputs and publications, including multiple journal articles and a book chapter. DEEP Research Assistant Nicola D'Orazio and past DEEP team member Brooklyn Royce have led these research projects under the direction of supervisors Justine Leavy, Lauren Nimmo (RLSSWA), Renee Carey and Malena Della Bona.
Please read on to discover more about our Summer Research Scholarship projects.
Nicola's research scholarship project was split into two phases, and was under the supervision of Justine Leavy, Lauren Nimmo (RLSSWA) and Renee Carey. He also undertook half of his scholarship working days at RLSSWA, having regular in-person meetings with Lauren.
Phase 1 - Fatal drowning coronial data analysis
At the beginning of phase 1, Nicola and supervisors Justine & Renee conducted pilot coding of various coronial recommendations, to ensure consensus was reached on how to code each item. Following this step, Nicola coded the remaining coronial recommendations, mapping to Haddon's Matrix and several other categories. He then coded the drowning death cases to the AWSS 2030 categories (people, places, activities, populations & risk factors).
Phase 2 - Exploration of coronial recommendation implementation
After completing the coding in Phase 1, Nicola went on to repurpose the in-depth interview guide used in the Victorian setting for this same project, providing new questions and suggestions to be reviewed. He is continuing to contribute to this project beyond the timeframe of the scholarship, with the interview process to follow, along with reaching consensus regarding the recommendation coding between the Curtin and RLSSWA teams.
This research scholarship contained two discrete projects: supporting a component of the Healthway funded Water Alcohol adVertising Evidence (WAVE) Project, and contributing to 'Personal Skills to Prevent Drowning', a chapter of the Handbook on Drowning (3rd Ed), a comprehensive book on drowning with an international scope.
WAVE Youth Intercept Survey
Nicola's contribution to the WAVE Project involved a youth intercept survey on alcohol advertising and young people's attitudes. He began by finalising the survey instrument, providing feedback on the questions, and then submitted an ethics amendment, replicated fieldwork documents, helped facilitate a volunteer training presentation and led a volunteer team at the Scarborough Sunset Markets. Following data collection, he cleaned the dataset, analysed data and co-authored a journal article, which is now in the process of being published.
Once published, the link will be available here.
Handbook on Drowning 3rd Ed.
As an invited author, alongside A/Prof Justine Leavy, Nicola undertook a literature review, created an Endnote referencing style, liased with other co-authors and coordinated their contributions to the chapter. He also co-wrote various sections of Chapter 8: Personal Skills to Prevent Drowning with Justine, and edited the chapter, incorporating feedback from the main editors. This book is also now in the process of being published.
Brooklyn was involved in the material preparation and data collation for a systematic review, which mapped the description of implementation strategies in the drowning prevention literature published between 2002-2022. She was involved in screening articles for inclusion in the study, reviewing articles and mapping the text against the Expert Recommendations of Implementing Change (ERIC) strategies. As a result, Brooklyn was included as a co-author in the published journal article.
Please click here to read the article 'Using ERIC to assess implementation science in drowning prevention interventions in high-income countries: A systematic review'.