@Harriet_Koorts |h.koorts@deakin.edu.au
I am a Senior Research Fellow and Implementation Scientist in the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) at Deakin University. I also lead the Translation and Implementation Research core and provide implementation science consultation to staff within IPAN and the Faculty of Health. I am a Principal Investigator of INfant Feeding, Active play and NuTrition (INFANT) d one of the leaders of the INFANT implementation evaluation.
After completing my PhD in 2012, I worked in UK public health, which gave me a longstanding passion for improving population health. INFANT is a perfect example of an initiative aiming to improve practice and have a meaningful, translatable, impact on the lives of Australians. INFANT has provided me an opportunity to work alongside a team of investigators who share a passion for translating research into practice, on a scale that has the potential for long term health gains.
My research focuses on the implementation and scale-up of physical activity and nutrition interventions at a population level. I’m currently involved as an implementation scientist in a number of state-wide trials testing the real-word implementation and effectiveness of physical activity and nutrition interventions at scale.
Looking ahead to the future, I hope to see an increasing amount of research in early childhood that embeds implementation science principles into the design and development of research from the outset. INFANT is unique in many ways as translation was considered very early on during the programs’ conceptualisation, however, this is not the case for many health behaviour interventions. If we can get better at thinking about the end goal of our research and interventions, long before they are tested among users, we would potentially see a far greater use of evidence in practice.
Learn more about Dr Harriet Koorts and the INFANT team here.