About The Project
About The Project
ON THIS PAGE:
- Information about the research and evidence that informed the development of the DDCSRH Website.
- An introduction to the Digital and Data Capabilities for Sexual and Reproductive Health Project research team.
The Digital and Data Capabilities for Sexual and Reproductive Health Project
The Digital and Data Capabilities for Sexual and Reproductive health Project is a 4-year programme of research led by Professor Kath Albury. It was funded by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
This site based on two iterative stages of qualitative research.
You can read more about these stages in our research reports:
You can read more about how the website was developed and the pilot workshops with sexual and reproductive health practitioners in our Final Report:
The Digital and Data Capabilities models build on Data Capabilities research partnerships funded and partially funded by Swinburne’s Social Innovation Research Institute; the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making +Society.
💻 For more research and evidence supporting the DDCSRH
Project Outputs
Academic Papers
- Albury, K. & Mannix, S. (2025) Digital Determinants of sexual and reproductive health – workforce perspectives on digital and data literacies. Health Promotion International, 40(2).
- Albury, K. & Mannix, S. (2025). From Digital Health Literacy to a Digital and Data Capabilities Approach to Sexual Health. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 1-15.
Project Reports
- Digital and data capabilities for sexual health policy and practice: stage one report – (Albury and Mannix, 2023)
- Building digital and data capabilities for sexual health policy and practice stage two report: working with young adults aged 18-29 (Albury, Mannix, Learmonth, Mills, Arnot-Bradshaw, 2024)
Webinars
- Digital and Data Capabilities: new models for sexual health policy and practice – Stage One Report Launch (2023), with Kath Albury, Samantha Mannix, Shelley Kerr and Son Vivienne.
- Digital and data capabilities for sexual and reproductive health – what do young adults want from health service providers. – Stage Two Report Launch (2024), with Kath Albury and Samantha Mannix.
- ‘Re-framing digital sexual health: from individual literacies to workforce capabilities’ – presented by Kath Albury and Samantha Mannix at the UNSW Centre for Social Research in Health and the BBV & STI Research, Intervention and Strategic Evaluation Program (BRISE), November 2023.
- Digital Cultures and Sexual Health: research and practice roundtable – with, Kath Albury, Heather McCormack, Jennifer Power, Daniel Reeders and Andrea Waling, 2022.
- Groundhog Day Panel: Digital media is fake and teaches young people the wrong things about sexuality – presented by Kath Albury, Samantha Mannix, Barrie Shannon and Hao Zheng, as part of the Groundhog Day series from Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab) at Curtin University.
- Sexual Wellness and Sex Tech – presented by Zahra Stardust and Kath Albury at the Centre for Excellence in Rural Sexual Health’s Sexual Wellness Professional Development Series (2024).
Podcasts
- Young people’s digital cultures and sexual health with Professor Kath Albury – Kath Albury in conversation with Maddy from the Caddyshack team.
Digital and data capabilities for sexual and reproductive health YouTube Page
Meet the Team
Professor Kath Albury
Professor Kath Albury is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, and an Associate Investigator in the Swinburne University of Technology Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S).
She co-leads the ADM+S Signature Project ‘Critical Capabilities for Inclusive AI’ with Professor Anthony McCosker (Swinburne University of Technology) and Professor Julian Thomas (RMIT).
Kath also co-leads the Swinburne Social Innovation Research Institute’s Platform Society, Digital Economy program, and is a Chief Investigator on the Swedish/Australian collaboration ‘Digital sexual health: Designing for safety, pleasure and wellbeing in LGBTQ+ communities‘ (2022-2025), with Professor Jenny Sundén (Södertörn University) and Dr Zahra Stardust (QUT).
Kath has led research collaborations with non-government, government and industry partners including: ACON Health, the Allanah & Madeline Foundation, the National Rugby League, and the National Association of People Living with HIV, Australia. She was a member of NSW Health’s HIV/STI Health Promotion Subcommittee from 2004-2014.
Dr Samantha Mannix
Dr Samantha Mannix is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and an Affiliate of the Swinburne Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S). Samantha has a public health background, with professional experience in the fields of sexual health and the prevention of gender-based violence. Her doctoral research (University of Melbourne, 2022) explored the ways school-aged young people come to understand and experience their intimate and dating relationships through schooling and digital practices.
Caitlin Learmonth
Caitlin Learmonth is a PhD candidate at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research examines how the everyday digital and data practices of the Australian healthcare ecosystem do or do not account for the sexual health needs of consumers who are not part of ‘priority populations’.
Her thesis investigates the ways data informs sexual health policy and practice and the digital platforms facilitating service delivery; and reflects on the limitations of binary data collection, population-based sampling, and siloed digital systems. Consensual non-monogamy is used as a case study to consider the ways that sexual cultures shape consumers’ needs and expectations of sexual health service provision, guidelines and health promotion materials.
Acknowledgements
This work builds on the Data Capability Framework developed by McCosker et al, 2022. It has been developed by the project team with special assistance from Transgender Victoria, plus input and guidance from more than 50 generous research participants, and our expert reference group.
Expert Reference Group
- Professor Joanne Bryant, UNSW
- Professor Angela Dawson, University of Technology
- Professor Mark Davis, Monash University
- Ms Bec Shaw, Youth Affairs Council Victoria
- Mr Christopher Camacho, ASHM
- Dr Andrew Farrell, Macquarie University
- Professor Anthony McCosker, Swinburne University of Technology
- Dr Natalie Hendry, University of Melbourne
- Ms Shelley Kerr, ASHM
- Ms Catalina Labra-Odde, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
- Professor Jason Ong, Monash/Melbourne Sexual Health
- Mx Daniel Reeders, National Association of People with HIV Australia
- Dr Son Vivienne, Transgender Victoria
- Ms Joanna Williams, Swinburne University of Technology
- Ms Jess Wilms, NSW Health
Peer Researchers
- Adrienne Arnot-Bradshaw
- Xavier Mills
Transgender Group Facilitators
- Nicole Nguyen
- Caleb Darwent
Research Assistance
- Joanna Williams
- Lesley Luo
Website, videos and graphics were designed and created by Sydelle Saldanha.
The majority of written content (including the Capabilities Models, research vignettes and video scripts) was created by Kath Albury and Samantha Mannix. Additional ‘vignette’ content was created by Caitlin Learmonth, Xavier Mills and Joanna Williams, drawing on their original doctoral research.
© Albury and Mannix, 2024.
This work is protected by a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence. This means you may re-use and adapt the text for your circumstances – provided you provide full attribution to the authors and do not claim exclusive ownership or commercialise the content.
Original artwork by Jacq Moon must not be reproduced without permission: https://www.jacqmoon.com
Funding
This project is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, FT210100085; and partially funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), CE200100005.