Health and medical research
Research is an essential component of SA Health’s mission as it supports innovation, attracts high quality staff, and delivers health, social and economic benefits for South Australians. SA Health supports research in a variety of ways, from providing facilities and infrastructure including our public hospitals and health services to conduct research, through to providing policy and guidance to assist health and medical researchers to deliver their research effectively and efficiently.
Every day the public benefits from innovations derived from health and medical research, including developing new ways to prevent disease such as new vaccines, to discovering patterns of disease that can better develop community programs and health policy.
South Australia has a long history of excellence in health and medical research and has fostered world class scientists. Some examples include:
- The Honourable Dr Basil Hetzel, AC, who pioneered work leading to the prevention of thyroid disease and intellectual disability that is associated with iodine deficiency in developing countries.
- Professor John Hopwood and his team at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital who worked on the diagnosis and treatment of lysosomal storage disorders.
- The work of Professor Fran Baum AO on the social determinants of health and the ongoing influence of this work on South Australian government policy.
How we support statewide research
SA Health has various roles supporting statewide research:
- provide resources to support research
- set policy and strategic directions for research that are aligned with the South Australian Health and Medical Research Strategy and other health priorities, including the SA Health Research Ethics and Governance policy
- ensure public research is overseen and assessed by research ethics committees
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collaboration between the Department for Health and Wellbeing and all Local Health Network (LHN) research offices to support shared priorities, including research ethics and governance policies, standards and procedures
- collaboration with national and international universities, private institutes and other non-government organisations
- assist in the translation of research findings into policy and practice
- support implementation of Research Centres of Excellence to build research capacity
- working with the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia to promote and support quality research that will benefit Aboriginal people.
