Australian report urging more transparency in public health research is kept unpublished

A report that calls for Australia to establish a register of public health research, in an effort to promote improved government transparency, is yet to be released eight months after it was completed.

Don Nutbeam, who chaired a review of funding of public health for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), has taken the unusual step of sending a letter to express his frustration at the delay in the report’s release, which he said was causing “disappointment, concern and suspicion” among the public health community.

In his letter, published by the Public Health Association of Australia (www.phaa.net.au) and the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (http://afphm.racp.edu.au/news/trainingevents.cfm), he said that the review was completed last …