Diabetes Unit

The Diabetes Unit is a primarily self-funded entity established at the Australian Health Policy Institute (AHPI) in June 2005 as a new iteration of its predecessor, the Australian Centre for Diabetes Strategies, which was located at the Prince of Wales Hospital – University of New South Wales. Within AHPI’s strategic framework of ambitions and themes, The Diabetes Unit works to augment and complement AHPI’s existing strengths and support its strategic direction by:

• Establishing and maintaining an Oxford Health Alliance presence and focus of activity for the Asia-Pacific Region;
• Pursuing activities in health services research and development, population health improvement, and generating or synthesising the evidential and consensual base on which policy for the prevention and care of diabetes and related chronic diseases can be founded.

The Diabetes Unit hosts the Australian Cochrane Diabetes Satellite under a grant from the Department of Health and Ageing administered through the Australasian Cochrane Centre. Shortly after its establishment, the Menzies Centre for Health Policy was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council Grant to implement strategies for better prevention, management and care for Australians with, or at risk of, serious and continuing illnesses (Serious and Continuing Illnesses Policy and Practice Study - SCIPPS). The Diabetes Unit provides one of the six chief investigators for SCIPPS.

The Diabetes Unit, along with the AHPI, forms the Asia-Pacific Regional hub of the Oxford Health Alliance and, in this context, has worked to build and maintain a network of people and organisations from across a wide spectrum of components of society who are working towards improving the health environment or whose business is wittingly or unwittingly influencing the health environment.

Associate Professor Ruth Colagiuri will head The Diabetes Unit.

For further information on staff within the Diabetes Unit, please visit: http://www.ahpi.health.usyd.edu.au/about/tdu.php.