National Health and Medical Research Council

• Senator Janet Rice, the committee chair, urged the government to take the report very seriously and quickly move to implement the recommendations.
• Our sports leagues have begun paying greater attention to the risks associated with concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries.
• However, governments have been slow to act on repeated calls for a national strategy to what is fundamentally a public health concern.

Conflicting approaches to concussions

• Two conflicting narratives emerged from the evidence.
• On the one hand, athletes, families, health care professionals and other public interest groups expressed concern that the current approach on concussions and player safety was inadequate.
• They argued there are too many gaps in the system and, in some cases, that sports organisations are putting self interest above player health.

Lack of reliable data on head injuries

• One of the main concerns in the report was the lack of reliable and accurate data on the prevalence of concussions in sport and our general level of understanding on the health risks.
• To address the data issue, the inquiry recommended the government establish a national sports injury database as a matter of urgency.
• There is clear evidence of a causal link between repeated head trauma and
  concussions and subsequent neurodegenerative diseases such as CTE.

‘High level of confusion’ on return-to-play rules

• Other recommendations focus on how sporting codes should change their rules or policies to mitigate the risks of head injuries.
• Read more:
  New study highlights the brain trauma risks for young athletes

  This is an important point.

• The report cited concern over the “high level of confusion” over how much time a player should sit out, which comes from the disparate rules across sporting codes.

Inadequate support for athletes

The final sections of the report deal with the current lack of financial support for players who suffer concussions, including:
• The report made clear much more could be done by sporting organisations to improve their duty of care to athletes.
• As a baseline, it “encourages” professional sports organisations to ensure their athletes have insurance coverage for head trauma and the removal of the exclusion of athletes from workers’ compensation regimes.
• The goal here is to address the inequities in access to adequate support for professional athletes.

• A 15-minute consultation isn’t long enough to provide support to change behaviours, Brumfitt says, and GPs don’t have enough training and expertise to have these complex discussions.
• By raising the issue of weight, Brumfitt says, GPs also risk turning patients off seeking care for other health concerns.
• So should GPs bring up a patient’s weight in consultations about other matters?
• He does not have a specific interest in obesity, but like almost all GPs, he treats many patients who are overweight or obese.

• In teenagers, irregular bedtimes, short sleep duration and poor sleep quality are commonly reported sleep issues.
• In the longer term, poor sleep can lead to obesity, health conditions (including diabetes), mental health problems, and risk taking behaviour.

Sleep vulnerability

• The ongoing effects of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, and other social determinants of health increase the vulnerability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers to poor sleep.
• While some poor sleep issues are transient, continued exposure to racism, discrimination, household overcrowding and lack of safe sleeping spaces lead to chronic sleep issues.
• This could be because although the need for healthy sleep is universal, the meaning of sleep health is shaped by cultural and societal factors.

A co-designed approach

• Community yarns also identified the need to strengthen local sleep health service delivery and train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as “sleep coaches”.
• Read more:
  Drinking fountains in every town won't fix all our water issues – but it's a healthy start

What the program involves

• The program empowers young people to identify their sleep health goals and work with coaches to achieve them.
• At the beginning of the program, participants identify a group and an individual goal they would like to attain.
• The program has also led to the training of two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australia’s first Indigenous sleep coaches.

What happened as a result of improved sleep

• The program data shows the majority of the program participants were staying up until very late at the night.
• However, participants achieved their self-identified goals and believe this program gave them tools to improve their sleep.
• The project team and community members are working to co-design a sleep health program for adults and extend the youth sleep program to other communities.
• Yaqoot Fatima is supported by funding from the NHMRC Partnership Grant, MRFF Indigenous Health Research Grant, MRFF-EMCR grant, and Beyond Blue for sleep health research.

• Shannon Reidt , Director of Medication Research and Analytics at Surescripts, will present new data and analysis that supports the opportunity for evolving care teams, including pharmacists, to help fill gaps in primary care so patients will continue to have access to essential services.
• Nearly half of all counties in the United States have relative shortages of primary care providers (PCPs), with just one PCP for every 1,500 people.
• Surescripts is a member and sponsor of NCPDP , supporting dozens of workgroups that inform leading pharmacy industry standards.
• Where to Find Surescripts at NCPDP:
  Speaking session: Opportunities to Expand Access & Fill Gaps in Primary Care, Tuesday, May 9, 3:10—3:30 p.m., in the Innovation Theater
  Under intense pressure, today’s care team is evolving—and new data shows that pharmacies have a unique opportunity to improve access to primary care.