Project Lead
Eleanor Johnson
Lead partner
Northern Health
MacHSR Future Leaders Fellowship Program (cohort 1).
Equitable access to contraception and abortion are fundamental components of sexual and reproductive health. Due to the sensitive nature of abortion care and vulnerability of the women who access these services, it is important that the needs of women are understood and prioritised to promote empowerment and optimise patient experience. There has been very little research partnering with women in this space.
Eleanor will lead a collaborative multidisciplinary research team that aims to address this gap in the literature and add to the growing body of evidence on the use of co-design in developing tailored health services to improve patient experience.
This work continues as the basis for a PhD through the MACH Track program and has resulted in two second author papers in progress.
During the fellowship the planned survey and interviews were completed and analysed, with the findings placed to inform co-design workshops that will ultimately develop expanded comprehensive abortion care services.
This project was awarded a “Top 10 abstract” at Northern Health Research Week 2023 and was presented at the ACM National Conference 2023 and Northern Health Grand Rounds. Eleanor was also invited to the Northern Foundation International Women’s Day Breakfast to meet the Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health, Kat Theophanous, to discuss the expansion of Northern Health’s Family Planning Clinic and the midwife-led abortion care co-design research. The Premier’s statement on this which mentions the research can be found here. Mary-Anne Thomas’s comments about the morning meeting can be found here.