Impact story - Mangala’s story
An empty lap
Mangala’s son would be on the cusp of adulthood had he not drowned seventeen years ago in a pond near the family home in a village in West Bengal.
She recalls how the day he died had started out like most others. Her husband, brother-in-law and father-in-law had left the house as the sun was rising, off to farm the land they rented nearby.
Her mother-in-law stayed at home to help care for Mangala’s two young sons while she started cooking for the family.
While Mangala was finishing the curry her mother-in-law headed outside to greet a passing salesman. Unbeknownst to her, her young grandson had followed her. When she stepped back indoors, alone, Mangala called for her son. When he did not respond, they started looking in earnest.
The search proved fruitless.
“I looked everywhere, in every corner of the house, but I didn’t find him. Then I shouted, asking neighbours where my child was. No one had seen him.By: MangalaMother who
Submission on options for improving the composition of the food supply in relation to industrially-produced trans fats in Australia and New Zealand
Policy & Practice Report
REVERSE: Reducing cardiovascular and kidney risk in diabetes
Background
Diabetes is a major public health challenge, causing additional complications across multiple organ systems. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are the leading causes of disability and death in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
In Australia, T2DM prevalence has nearly tripled in recent decades, with around 1.3 million people affected. The condition carries enormous economic and societal costs. T2DM has a major impact in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas like Western Sydney, South-Western Sydney, and regional NSW, where high prevalence and CVD/CKD complications represent major challenges for local health services.
Treatments to slow and prevent the CVD/CKD effects of diabetes exist, but they rely on a health system that can readily identify high-risk patients, implement, and monitor treatment, and coordinate the complex care of such patients. Although proven strategies to delay and prevent the impacts of CVD and CKD in high-risk diabet
Response to Food Standards Australia New Zealand’s Preliminary Position on the Nutrition Information Panel Review
Policy & Practice Report
Pregnancy warnings on alcohol products
Policy & Practice Report
Submission to FSANZ on energy labelling on alcoholic beverages
Policy & Practice Report
Evidence library
Please find below a list of the key publications supporting the case for potassium-enriched salt. For a more comprehensive list, click here or to return to the main page click here.
Trials
Effect of Salt Substitution on Cardiovascular Events and Death.New England Journal of Medicine, 2021https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2105675
Salt substitution and salt-supply restriction for lowering blood pressure in elderly care facilities: a cluster-randomized trial.Nature Medicine, 2023https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02286-8
Effects of salt substitutes on clinical outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Heart 2022https://heart.bmj.com/content/108/20/1608.long
Effects of a reduced-sodium added-potassium salt substitute on blood pressure in rural Indian hypertensive patients: a randomized, double-blind, controlled trialThe American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2021https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916522003185
DISPENSE calculator
Hello and welcome!
In 2023 the Australian government changed how often you can receive refills of certain medicines including blood pressure medicines. Your doctor can now write prescriptions to allow you to receive 60 days of certain medicines at a time, rather than 30 days of medicine at each refill. This can save money for you and the government. See here for more information.
You may click here to learn more about The DISPENSe trial now or first use the calculator explained below.
This page provides a simple calculator anyone can use to find out the approximate difference in cost between 30 and 60 days refills.Please list all of your medicines below. It may help to have the medicine boxes in front of you. Type the first few letters of name (trade name or drug name) and then choose from the dropdown list.
This is the monthly cost to a patient, derived from official PBS “DPMQ” reimbursement prices for 30 day vs 60 day dispensing. The DPMQ is ‘Dispensed Price
Understanding the effects of extreme heat in pregnancy, the HiP-India project
Background
Pregnant women, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries, are among the most vulnerable populations to climate change. India has experienced a marked rise in the intensity, frequency, and duration of heatwaves over the last half-century, with 2022 and 2024 being the hottest years since 1901.
Extreme heat exposure has been linked to several adverse pregnancy outcomes, including:
Preterm birth
Stillbirth
Gestational diabetes
Small for gestational age babies
Preeclampsia
However, the biological mechanisms linking environmental heat to these outcomes remain poorly understood.
Aim
The Heat in Pregnancy – India (HiP-India) project is a multi-partner coalition of researchers across India and the UK seeking to understand why exposure to extreme heat leads to adverse birth outcomes. This Wellcome Trust-awarded project is a collaborative effort between the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI),
The Resilience Collaborative 2024: Enhancing healthcare worker resilience by co-developing evidence-based solutions for scale (RECONNECTIONS)
BackgroundThe Resilience Collaborative (TRC) is a global learning community that aims to promote healthcare worker resilience, as part of supporting their wellbeing, preventing burnout, improving quality of care in low-resource settings.TRC was launched by the Johnson & Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation in 2021 to support health workers and the organisations that care about them. As part of the TRC’s evolution, The George Institute for Global Health has taken on the role of the host organisation for this global community of practice since May 2023.AimThe goal is to advance equitable quality of care by prioritising the wellbeing and resilience of healthcare workers (HCWs) and the systems they support, through leadership development and capacity building. To advance learning and drive adoption of evidence-based strategies for health worker resilience and sustain the shared ownership and partnership, The George Institute as the host organisation has drafted an impact pathway that addresses effort
A guide to potassium-enriched salt
Please find below downloadable one-page guides for consumers and health professionals with key information on potassium-enriched salt.
For health professionalsA guide to potassium-enriched salt.Learn more
For consumersA guide to potassium-enriched salt.Learn more
WHO guidelineA summary for policy makersLearn more
FactsheetSwitching the world’s salt supply: Scaling up the use of potassium-enriched salt.Learn more
For meal producersLearn more
EvidenceUK evidence on using low-sodium salt substitutes.Learn more
NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Change
Hosted by The George Institute India, in partnership with Imperial College London, the NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Change aims to be a recognised centre of excellence on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and global environmental change in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), offering world-leading research, training and policy advice for health equity. LMICs face dual, intertwined challenges of a rapidly growing burden of NCDs and the existential threat of global environmental change. In addition, health systems in LMICs face specific challenges in delivering high-quality, equitable services for NCDs prevention and care, especially for marginalised populations most impacted by environmental change.Despite an increasingly recognised imperative for action, there is a paucity of evidence on cost-effective interventions to address major challenges emerging at the nexus of NCDs and environmental change.Our Centre will focus on Bangladesh, India, and Indones
