Expert Advisory Group Application Form
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EXPERT ADVISORY GROUP AT THE MATILDA CENTRE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY


Thank you for your interest. Please find more information about our Expert Advisory Group below. If you have any questions, please feel free to email louise.thornton@sydney.edu.au.

About us
We are health researchers from the Matilda Centre at the University of Sydney. Our research is focused on helping young people to improve their physical and mental health by developing, testing and delivering effective, evidence-based, and engaging digital health tools (e.g. mobile health apps) tailored to young people. We are strongly committed to producing outcomes that are of relevance to young people and we aim to do so by engaging with them throughout all the processes in research.

About the Expert Advisory Group
The Expert Advisory Group will enable young people to work together with health researchers and other key stakeholders such as parents of teenagers, teachers, and health professionals to understand how best to encourage young people to adopt and regularly use digital health tools. Specifically, the Expert Advisory Group will meet up to discuss what things encourage young people to use health apps and what things get in the way of them using these sorts of tools. The group will also look at a specific health app designed to encourage teenagers to be physically active, eat healthy, adopt healthy sleep habits, limit screen time, and not drink or smoke. The group will then work together to design better ways of marketing the app and making it more engaging for teenagers to use.

As a member of the group, you will be offered the opportunity to contribute your thoughts and ideas to help optimise the development, marketing, and engagement of digital health tools for young people. Participation in the Expert Advisory Group will aim to help increase your aptitude for research and implementation science. The group will run quarterly from March 2024 to June 2025. There will also be two design workshops run over this period, in addition to the quarterly meetings.

Data protection
The personal data you provide will be used by the research team at The University of Sydney only for the purpose of selecting members of the Expert Advisory Group and will be kept confidential and stored securely.

We are seeking young people who meet the following criteria:

  • Over 18 years of age
  • Living in Australia 
  • Involved in the lives of young people aged 13 – 18 years (e.g., parent of teenager, high school teacher, health professional working with adolescents, representative of an organization working with young people) 
  • Access to a smartphone with Apple or Android operating systems that can receive text messages and phone calls 
  • Can speak and understand English 
  • Enthusiasm for chronic disease prevention 
  • Creativity and ability to share new ideas 
  • Ability to communicate and engage in discussion online, e.g. over Zoom 
  • Available to engage in the group from March 2024 to June 2025 
  • Available to attend one online meeting/activity per quarter (every three months) 
  • Available to attend online design workshops
The Expert Advisory Group is responsible for:

  • Discussing what things encourage young people to use health apps and what things get in the way of them using these sorts of tools

  • Engaging with a specific health app designed to encourage teenagers to be physically active, eat healthy, adopt healthy sleep habits, limit screen time, and not drink or smoke

  • Designing better ways of marketing the app and making it more engaging for teenagers to use

  • Identifying opportunities for the development of key skills for young people related to research

  • Ensuring broad and inclusive representation of key stakeholder views, especially those without direct group representation