Meeting 1 - Eating Disorder Satellite Research Meeting

Date: Tuesday 28 November 2023
Time:  1:30pm to 6:00pm
Venue/Room: Blackwood Room, Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough
Cost: $30pp for SMHR Conference Delegates (includes afternoon tea)

Description:
The meeting is divided into three parts. The first part consists of a choice of two breakout sessions. The first is a Clinical Trials tasting plate: assessment, designs that inform translation and accompanying statistical approaches, co-design, health economic perspectives. The second is Planning and communicating your research impact story. The second part consists of all delegates participating in a discussion on How to build the eating disorder research workforce in Australia. Third, we hope that you will join us for dinner at the end of the day. Attendance at this satellite meeting is intended to encourage presentation of research in eating disorders at the Society for Mental Health Research conference 2023. 

Presenters Biographies
Dr. Laura Hart is a Senior Research Fellow working in the Population Mental Health Group, Centre for Mental Health, University of Melbourne. Dr. Hart began working in the field of population mental health in 2007 as a Research Assistant developing guidelines on mental health first aid for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. From 2012 to 2020, Dr. Hart also completed post-doctoral research at La Trobe University. She worked on a program for parents of pre-schoolers to prevent body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The "Confident Body, Confident Child" program is now available across Australia, the US, Norway, and New Zealand. In 2018 Dr Hart co-founded the Victorian Eating Disorders Research Network, along with the Centre for Excellence in Eating Disorders and Eating Disorders Victoria. She sits on the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) Steering Committee, is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal for Eating Disorders and is a Fellow of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) based at Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital, USA.

Professor Phillipa Hay, Western Sydney University, is well known for her work in eating disorders. She is past-President of the Australian Academy for Eating Disorders. She is committed to research that results in a better understanding of eating disorders to reduce the individual, family, and community burden. Her current research focuses on randomised controlled trials of interventions for anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders, as well as public health and community interventions that will reduce barriers to accessing care. Other studies have explored the diagnostic status of disordered eating behaviours and eating disorder mental health literacy in the community, clinical and professional samples. She is a principal reviewer and writer of systematic reviews internationally in the field of eating disorders for the highly regarded Cochrane Library and Clinical Evidence. This work led to selection of a review for publication in the British Medical Journal. She has also received recognition through being invited to submit articles and commentaries to Australasian and International journals, publications, and books.

Dr Deborah Mitchison Crawford is an Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology, University of Technology Sydney, Graduate School of Health. She employs epidemiological and clinical research methods to improve understanding on the phenomenology, burden, distribution and health service use of eating and body image disorders. Deb completed her training as a clinical psychologist in 2012 and received her PhD in Medicine in 2015. Following her PhD she commenced a Macquarie University Research Fellowship, investigating the prevalence and burden of eating disorders Australian adolescents by establishing a large school-based cohort of >5000 youth. At this time, she also established with a partnership of leading Australian eating disorder clinics Australia's first eating disorder registry. In 2019 Deb moved to Western SU to commence an NHMRC (Health Professional) Early Career Fellowship (ECF), expanding on this research to examine risk factors and illness trajectories for eating and body image disorders longitudinally.

Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor Tracey Wade has worked as a clinician and researcher in eating disorders for over 30 years. In 2015 she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. In 2016 she was made an Inaugural Honorary Fellow of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy. In 2017-18 she was the president of the Eating Disorder Research Society. In 2019 she was appointed Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and was a recipient of the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders Distinguished Achievement Award, and in 2020 she was the recipient of the Academy of Eating Disorders Outstanding Clinician Award. She is the director of the Flinders Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing, the Blackbird Initiative, and the Flinders University Services for Eating Disorders (FUSED). She has cowritten 3 books and has over 270 publications in peer reviewed journals. Her research interests focus on prevention, the treatment of perfectionism, early intervention, and the development and evaluation of evidence-based services for people with eating disorders.