Throughout my PhD I hope to work towards reducing some common and co-occurring risk behaviours and mental health difficulties among young people. I first became curious about this topic during a conversation with friends about how common it has become to see teenagers, and even children, vaping – to the extent that vapes seem almost like an extension of their hands.I started to wonder whether vaping might function in a similar way to tobacco smoking, which has historically been used as a weight-control strategy by some young people.

Given that vapes are so accessible, offered in enticing flavours, and easy to conceal from parents or family members, there is added urgency to understand the relationship between vaping, disordered eating and their associations among young people and how these issues can be addressed. I’m excited to see what emerges from combining research, digital tools and co-design to reach young people in ways they endorse and to contribute to scalable programs that improve access to support. 

I’m delighted to have the opportunity to carry out this work at the Matilda Centre, and I look forward to strengthening my analytic skills and expanding my networks through the Centre, the University, and at both local and international conferences.

I have been very lucky to work on the OurFutures Vaping Trial since the start of 2023. Seeing the impact that this program had on young people inspired me to start thinking about where young Australians are getting information on vapes/vaping and how the source of that information might impact their behaviours when it comes to vaping. I was particularly curious about this in relation to people around my own age, who left high school before vapes became as prolific as they are now and so didn’t necessarily get much education about them in schools.  

I became really interested in where these young people aged 18- 24, who in Australia have the highest usage rates of vapes, were seeking or encountering information about vapes and wanted to understand more about how the relationship between where they get information, their vaping knowledge, and vaping behaviours could help to inform future educational programs and public health campaigns. The prospect of amplifying the voices of these young people so that future campaigns and programs meet them where they are at and answer the questions they are actually asking was really exciting to me. 

My research project focuses on exploring how we can best design effective and equitable prevention strategies to improve mental health among young people. A key component of this work is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the modifiable risk and protective factors most important to youth mental health.

I am particularly interested in exploring how we can leverage psychosocial protective factors, like peer influence within school settings, where prevention efforts have great potential for ameliorating the burden of disease, equitably and sustainably. 

Through this work, I hope to learn about how we can integrate and translate knowledge from various fields of research to inform, refine and evaluate school-based programs to produce meaningful reductions in the incidence of youth mental illness. On a professional level, I am really excited to grow as an independent researcher and develop my research skills from project formation to dissemination.