There is still time to apply for our Knowledge Exchange Director position. Applications close COB Monday 1 February. Our new director will oversee the delivery of high-quality knowledge exchange services and further develop our innovative approach to increasing the use of research evidence in decision making. 

Professor Mark Harris, Executive Director of the Centre for Primary Health Care and  Equity at UNSW, guest edits our latest issue, with a theme of strengthening prevention in primary care. Other papers include a perspective on what factors might play a role in record-low smoking among adolescents, and a guide to scaling up population health interventions.

Dr Alex Wodak helped establish the first needle syringe program and the first medically supervised injecting centre in Australia. Here he discusses the history and challenges of drug law reform in Australia and internationally.

January's issue of the HARC e-Bulletin features new research on avoiding adverse healthcare events, including a study linking off-label prescribing to a high rate of adverse events, and a paper showing printed handover notes could be an error risk as they are out of date in just three hours. 

Professor Nicholas Mays and Dr Stefanie Ettelt from the UK's Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU) provide some guidance to ease the frustrations that can often surround initiating policy-relevant pilots and their evaluations.

Sleeping more than nine hours a night, and sitting too much during the day could be a hazardous combination, particularly when added to a lack of exercise, according to new findings to emerge from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study and published in PLOS Medicine.