Congratulations to the following researchers who have been awarded 2024 Healthway Targeted Research Round Exploratory grants:

• John Curtin Distinguished Professor Peter Gething from the Curtin School of Population Health was awarded $197,876 for the project ‘Smart Walking and Cycling: Active Travel to School Simulator’, which will use geospatial data provided by VirtualWA to model active transport behaviours across different WA school catchment areas. A tool will be developed that simulates different interventions and policies to predict their impact on children’s active transport behaviours.
• Associate Professor Michael Livingston from the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI), enAble Institute was awarded $198,748 for the project ‘Measuring alcohol risk, information needs and pathways using an AI chatbot’, which will test the effectiveness and efficiency of a chatbot as an alternative to traditional data collection methods. Data will be collected on alcohol usage and provide information to users on harms and referrals and further information for support.

Healthway Research Grants support exploratory or formative studies to address gaps in health promotion research, demonstrating the potential to influence health promotion in Western Australia.

L to R, John Curtin Distinguished Professor Peter Gething and Associate Professor Michael Livingston.