Australian Rotary Health

06/09/2026

This week, our partner Willed is writing Wills free of charge for Australian Rotary Health supporters.

It takes about 20 minutes, there is nothing to buy, and it comes with 12 months of free updates and a review by Willed’s own legal team.

And then, if you would like to, there is a second thing you can do in the same 20 minutes.

Every researcher we have ever funded was backed by someone who decided a question was worth answering before anyone could prove it would work. A gift in your Will to Australian Rotary Health keeps making that decision long after you have stopped being able to make it yourself, and it takes nothing at all away from the people you are looking after first.

Write your Will. https://www.willed.com.au/arh

05/09/2026

There is a rule in every Australian newsroom about how to report a su***de, and almost nobody knows where it came from.

23 years ago nobody could say for certain whether the way a story was written changed what happened next. It was widely believed and it was not proven, and no national guideline can rest on a belief.

So in 2003 we funded Professor Jane Pirkis at The University of Melbourne to find out. Her team took more than 4,000 media reports and matched them against su***de data in the regions those reports reached.

About a third of those media items were followed by a rise in su***des. Multiple reports, television items and reports of a completed su***de were the ones carrying the risk.

That finding went on to influence the Australian Government’s Mindframe initiative, the guidance Australian media still works to today, and reporting quality measurably improved in the years after.

One grant in 2003. Guidance that shapes how these stories are written in this country to this day. Because of you.

If this brings anything up for you, Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

Everymind The University of Melbourne

03/09/2026

What if the way into a child’s mental health was something as ordinary as bedtime?

Sleep and anxiety travel together in young children, and every parent of a child who cannot settle already knows it. What nobody knew was which way the arrow pointed, and whether fixing one might quietly fix the other.

So we backed Professor Caroline Donovan to build a sleep program for young children called Lights Out, and to find out.

The children slept better, which was the point. But the researchers also found the program prevented anxiety and behavioural problems from forming in the first place, in children who did not have them yet.

That is a remarkable thing to get from a bedtime routine, and it only exists because somebody paid for the question.

This is what funding possibility looks like. Back a PhD with us and fund the next breakthrough. Griffith University

https://www.griffith.edu.au/griffith-health/school-applied-psychology/research/lights-out

02/09/2026

Did you know that a small child’s stress leaves a trace you can measure in a single strand of their hair?

It is one of those findings that sounds like a curiosity until you realise what it makes possible. If you can measure stress in a toddler, you can tell whether something you are doing is actually helping, instead of hoping it is.

So in 2015 we backed Professor Sophie Havighurst to find out whether teaching a parent a different way of responding to their child’s big feelings would show up in that measurement.

It did, and the children of parents who did the program had measurably lower stress, and they were more socially competent with fewer behaviour problems.

Nothing about that child changed. What changed was the approach of the adult beside them, and that is a profoundly impactful way to support stronger foundations in early childhood.

$3,000 buys three months on an idea everyone else overlooked. Work with us to fund a researcher’s month. The University of Melbourne

https://tuningintokids.org.au/

02/09/2026

Here is something your support has already made real.

20 years ago, if you were waiting for a lung transplant in Australia, there was close to a one in three chance you would die before one became available. Almost a third of people on that waiting list never made it to surgery.

So in 2004 we backed Professor Gregory Snell at The Alfred (Bayside Health Alfred) to ask a question nobody had answered: could lungs recovered after a person’s heart has stopped be used for a transplant at all? At the time they never were, anywhere in the world, and there was no evidence yet that it would work.

It worked. The technique he built at The Alfred spread to every lung transplant programme in the country. By 2018, Australia had performed more than 300 of these transplants, close to a quarter of every lung transplant done here, and the largest national cohort of its kind anywhere in the world. Waiting times halved from six months to three, and deaths on the waiting list fell from 29% to 3%.

In his own words to us: “Literally now thousands of life years have been gained.”

None of it happens without a decision made two decades earlier to fund a question at the moment when nobody could promise it would lead anywhere. That is what an early yes is worth, and this is what possibility looks like.

$500 buys two weeks of a researcher’s time. Back the next question with us. Monash University Rotary Club of Williamstown

Support Research Support Research Donate Now Donate Now BE PART OF A BREAKTHROUGH EVERY DONATION FUNDS RESEARCH When it comes to health research, lots of little things make a big difference. Donations come in all different sizes too. You can donate individually or you can set up a recurring donation...

31/08/2026

45 years ago, a group of Rotarians decided that the best thing they could do for Australian health was not to raise awareness, but to back the research that could find answers.

That decision is why we are still here, and it is why there is something worth celebrating this year.

The Chairman’s Gala Dinner marks 45 years of Australian Rotary Health, and 45 years of a community willing to say yes to a question before anyone could promise where it would lead. Every scholar we have funded, every grant we have made, every answer that has changed what is possible for an Australian family, started with someone deciding it was worth backing.

Friday 16 October. Come and celebrate what you have made possible.

Book your table and join us.

30/08/2026

August, done.

This month you met the minds we back. Emerging researchers and scholars, asking the questions that could change what’s possible for Australian mental health.

In September, we ask the biggest question of all. It’s the month the whole country talks about mental health, and we’ll be right in the middle of it.

Same mission. Sharper than ever. Stay with us.

28/08/2026

62 kilometres. Five walking days. 15kg on your back. And every step raising funds for mental health research.

Six people have just completed the Jatbula Trail Challenge for Australian Rotary Health, walking from Nitmiluk Gorge to Leliyn (Edith Falls) through remote wilderness country in Nitmiluk National Park, Northern Territory.

Ron Degenhart (RC Mundingburra) and Pat Shraven (RC Rockingham), both Directors of Australian Rotary Health. Julie Wells and Dr Marg Purcell (RC Mareeba). James Smith (RC Darwin Sunrise) and Sue Hayes.

The Jatbula is one of Australia's great walks and one of its hardest. It crosses Jawoyn Country and carries the name of Peter Jatbula, a Jawoyn Traditional Owner who was instrumental in securing land rights for his people. The route follows the western edge of the Arnhem Land escarpment, across sandstone plateau, open forest and monsoon forest, past Biddlecombe Cascades, Crystal Falls, 17 Mile Falls and Sweetwater Pool.

This is what backing research looks like. Not only cheques and committees, but people willing to put themselves out there so researchers can keep asking the questions that lead to better mental health for Australians.

Australian Rotary Health has funded mental health research for more than 40 years. Since 2023 we have sharpened that focus onto the mental health of children aged 0 to 12, because the earlier we understand what helps, the more lives change.

Thank you to all six of you, and to everyone who has donated so far. There is still time to help them reach $20,000.

Donate: https://australian-rotary-health.mygiveeasy.com/jatbula-challenge-2026

27/08/2026

To every club that’s backing a scholar this year: thank you.

You’re the reason a researcher gets to keep asking their question. And you make it look easy, even though we know it takes real effort.

If your club wants to go further, invite an ARH speaker, one of our team or a board director, to your next meeting. We bring the talking points and a short presentation, so it’s easy to host.

Tag your club below if you’re backing ARH this year. We’d love to celebrate you.

27/08/2026

Sognos Solutions Pty Ltd has been named a Gold Companion of Australian Rotary Health.

Pictured left to right: ARH Chair Stephen Humphreys, who presented the award, with Rick Vosila and Rae-Ann Medforth.

Rick is an ARH Director and a co-founding director of Sognos Solutions. He's a member of the Rotary Club of Five Dock and District Governor Elect for District 9675.

Corporate partners like Sognos let us back researchers earlier, when an idea is still a question and the funding is hardest to find. That's where the breakthroughs start.

Thank you, Sognos.