Research staff profiles

James Balmford - Senior Research Officer

Ron Borland - Nigel Gray Distinguished Fellow in Cancer Prevention

Bill King - Research Officer

Cathy Segan - Honorary Research Associate of The Cancer Council Victoria

David Young - Sally Birch Fellow in Cancer Control

Hua Yong - Behavioural Scientist

 

James Balmford PhD
Senior Research Officer

James has a PhD from Monash University. He iwas a recipient of a National Heart Foundation Postgraduate Public Health Research Scholarship for study in the area of refining stage of change models for smoking cessation. His work at VCTC has mainly involved the development and evaluation of computer-based programs tailoring smoking cessation and prevention materials to the experience of the user. He was also a major contributor to a 2001 review of policy and programs to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in Australia. His major interests are understanding barriers to cessation, and using information technology to both improve the effectiveness of programs and to deliver them to a wider audience. He is a co-PI on our EQuit study which is exploring the role of telephone messaging as a smoking cessation aid.

Ron Borland PhD. MAPS
Nigel Gray Distinguished Fellow in Cancer Prevention

Trained in psychology, Ron has worked in tobacco control since shortly after joining the (then) Anti-Cancer Council's Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer in 1986. He was the Inaugual Director of VCTC, a position he relinquished in 2004 when he took up his current position.

Ron has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, most on topics in tobacco control. Ron's expertise covers much of tobacco control. He has an international reputation for his work on smoking cessation and on evaluating the impact of policy changes and programs (including media campaigns) on smokers. 

Ron is one of the Principal Investigators of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation collaboration (currently active In 14 countries).  This project Involves surveying cohorts of smokers about reactions to policies and programs; and collection of Information on tobacco products.  His current major interests are in the development of a rational comprehensive regulatory framework for tobacco, the ITC collaboration, and on the development and Improvement of mass-disseminable smoking cessation interventions, particularly Quitlines and internet-deliverable services.

Ron developed the Quit Coach, a computer program that provides interactive personalised advice to smokers. He is also PI of our EQuit study which is exploring the value of adding telepone messaging to the Quit Coach.

Ron has made plenary presentations at national and international conferences on tobacco control, including at the 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, Beijing, August 1997, the 14th WCTOH in Washington, July 2006; and the 13th SRNT Annual Meeting, February 2007 in Austin Texas.

Ron is an active contributor to the broader field through the Australian Cancer Society, professional societies in the area, government and semi-government committees, and through editorial advisory roles on five peer-reviewed journals that are all major dissemination sources for tobacco control. He has honorary academic appointments at The University of Melbourne (Professorial Fellow in the School of Population Health and Department of information Systems); and at Monash University. He has co-supervised research students from these and other universities

Bill King MSc
Research Officer

Bill has an MSc in History and Philosophy of Science and is currently working on a PhD. His current research is focused on documenting the changing construction and ingredients of Australian cigarettes and determining the tobacco industry's purposes in bringing about these changes. The principal aim of this research is to strengthen the case for new ways of regulating the construction and ingredients of cigarettes so as to better manage the public health impacts of cigarette smoking and to prevent smokers being misinformed about the risks they face.

Cathy Segan (BA (Hons), PhD)
Honorary Research Associate of The Cancer Council Victoria

Cathy became the Honorary Research Associate in October 2005 after leaving VCTC to take up a NHMRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship; at the Program Evaluation Unit, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne.  Cathy's research is concerned with the development and evaluation of Quit Victoria's smoking cessation services, in particular the Quitline.  NHMRC-funded projects are examining research questions such as: Can extra Quitline callbacks help ex-smokers embrace a smoke-free lifestyle and reduce rates of smoking relapse? Does quitting smoking reduce your risk of osteoporosis?, and Does general practitioner fax-referral to the Quitline improve patient smoking outcomes?. 

A recently awarded Beyond Blue grant will investigate the Quitline's effectiveness for smokers with a history of depression.  Cathy is also actively involved in teaching Program Evaluation to Masters of Public Health students. 

David Young PhD
Sally Birch Fellow in Cancer Control

David Young is the inaugural Sally Birch Fellow in Cancer Control, awarded by the Cancer Council Australia. He is currently working with the Knowledge Building Team at the Cancer Council Victoria. Prior to joining the Cancer Council, David was a consultant, and has submitted a PhD thesis - "Innovation in Sociotechnical Systems" - based on his consulting experience. The main focus of David's work with TCCV has been on how to optimise the translation of scientific research into practice in cancer control, using the relationship between Knowledge Building and Quit, the thrust to Smoke-free places, and the growing debate over product regulation and "safer" forms of nicotine as case studies.

David has also been working on data from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Survey (ITCPES) since 2004. In particular, he has prepared a report for the Australian Government on the relationship between the Australian results and those of the US, Canada and the UK; and peer-reviewed papers on Australian smokers' attitudes to increased regulation of the tobacco industry and market; the prevalence of correlates of Roll-Your-Own (RYO) use in Australia, Canada, the US and the UK, and the prevalence and correlates of RYO use in Thailand and Malaysia. He has presented papers on these topics at national and international conferences, including the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in Prague, The Australian National Tobacco Control Conference in Sydney and the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Washington.

David is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Monash University, as well as a member of the Complex Processes Research Group at Swinburne University and the Actor-Network Theory Group at Melbourne University.

Hua Yong PhD
Behavioural Scientist

Hua has a background In psychology and works on a number of international collaborative research projects primarily the International Tobacco Control 4-Country Survey (ITC-4) and the International Tobacco Control Southeast Asia Survey (ITC-SEA).

The ITC-4 Is a longitudinal study conducted on nationally representative sample of over 9,000 respondents from four countries: Canada, US, UK and Australia followed up annually. The ITC-4 commenced In October 2002 and aimed to evaluate the psychosocial and behavioural effects of national and subnational tobacco control policies on adult smokers in these four countries.

The ITC-SEA Is a parallel study which began In early 2005 and was conducted In two developing countries: Malaysia and Thailand. Hua's research interests Include psychosocial predictors of smoking and quitting behaviour, culture and smoking, and smoking among older people.