Professor Sandra Eades funded to investigate the commercial determinants of Health in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

A turtle being held by Dr Daphne Daniels, who is involved in the commercial determinants of health project at Ngukurr. Image credit: Professor Kate Senior
A turtle being held by Dr Daphne Daniels, who is involved in the commercial determinants of health project at Ngukurr. Image credit: Professor Kate Senior

Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences Professor Sandra Eades has received over $1, 27 Million in National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding for her project: Living the commercial determinants of health: A remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience.

Professor Eades leads one of five expert research teams to share in $7 million as part of the Targeted Call for Research (TCR): Commercial determinants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health 2023 program that will stimulate innovative research to drive better health and wellbeing outcomes.

At the University of Melbourne, Professor Eades is joined in this project with Chief Investigators Professor Richard Chenhall and will be joined by Dr Raymond Kelly and Professor Kate Senior from the University of Newcastle.

The project aims to understand the influence of commercial determinants of health - commercial activities that shape the physical and social environments in which people are born, grow, work, live and age - on the health and wellbeing of remote Indigenous communities through a collaborative approach with the Yugul Mangi Development (YMD) and the residents of Ngukurr, Northern Territory.

YMD represents the seven clans of South East Arnhem land as the main community reference group working to promote the growth of community-owned enterprise and to support clan business development, so that communities can benefit from the developing economic activities of the pastoral, tourism, land management and mining industries in South East Arnhem land.

The Indigenous-led research team includes both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and within this multi-component research project, Indigenous knowledge holders and community-based researchers in Ngukurr, the University of Melbourne and the University of Newcastle will work together to understand better the commercial determinants of health ecosystem in Ngukurr.