Register now to attend our free seminar on 18 April in which global patient safety expert Sir Liam Donaldson (pictured right) will join Austrailan health leaders to discuss the need for new directions to reduce patient harm.

In this opinion piece first published in The Mandarin, Professor Don Nutbeam, who leads the Sax Institute Evaulate program, writes that policy makers, researchers, frontline staff and the wider community often have very different views about what represents ‘value’ from public investments. As a result, the way they gauge success may be radically different.

It sometimes feels like researchers are from Mars and policy makers are from Venus, writes researcher Lily O'Donoughue Jenkins in this article based on her paper in Public Health Research & Practice. But secondments between government and university departments are one way of breaking down barriers and enhancing knowledge translation, she writes.

Having worked in all tiers of government, and in the research and non-government sectors, Dr Martin McNamara, our new Head of Research Assets, feels at home in the worlds of both policy making and research. There are many opportunities for the use of evidence in policy making that resources like the 45 and Up Study can help foster, he says.

Researchers from The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre will take centre stage at next week’s World Congress on Public Health, with more than 15 presentations and Canadian public health leader Professor Diane Finegood leading discussions on systems approaches to chronic disease prevention. You can stay in touch with Prevention Centre news by signing up to The Chronicle e-newsletter here.

New findings from the 45 and Up Study reveal that a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes not only takes a toll on physical health, but leads to poorer quality of life and an increased risk of social isolation ‒ factors that have important implications for disease management.

The Sax Institute's 2015‒16 Annual Report outlines how we are making our mark on the nation's health landscape through a wide range of programs and partnerships. Last year alone we worked with 77 policy and program agencies on diverse projects, and launched new ventures such as our Evaluate program, designed to deliver independent, evidence-based evaluations.