Our HHART Story
Health Heart Actions Right Time
Healthy Heart Actions Right Time (HHART) was born from a collaborative passion to explore how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can live free from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke for as long as possible.
The project is Indigenous-led, dedicated to bringing together individuals and community groups, community controlled primary health care providers and key stakeholders to co-design, implement and evaluate evidence-informed models of holistic CVD prevention that incorporate local community and clinical responses to heart health, using culturally secure approaches.
The inspiration for HHART came in July 2023 when research teams from the Australian National University (ANU) and SAHMRI hosted an in-person workshop with nine participants.
After four months of diligent evidence synthesis, deep discussions, collaborative writing, and careful revision by the research teams, the HHART grant application was submitted to the NHMRC. The application was approved in June 2024.
With funding secured, the SAHMRI team began actively engaging with participating services and strengthening broad relationships, while the ANU team consolidated existing research to inform strategies for the upcoming co-design phase and ethics application.
The first investigator meeting in November 2024 defined the next steps to progress the project:
- Set up a multi-institutional agreement between partners
- Prepare submission of Phase One ethics application
- Plan for recruitment of study team within services and within research institutes
- Outlining how ongoing communication will be managed
HHART is a three-phase project, with ethics approval sought separately for each phase. Phase One approval was granted April 2025. This phase focuses on co-designing holistic models of CVD preventative care and evaluation frameworks in partnership with two community-controlled services and groups.
Project Leader
PARTNERING INSTITUTIONS
Indigenous Wellbeing Centre IWC
This project is funded by the 2023 MRFF Cardiovascular Health Mission - Stream 3
SAHMRI is located on Kaurna Country. We pay respects to the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are committed to embracing knowledge and culture as we continue our working journey to incorporate Aboriginal health research across all of our themes and further reconciliation.
Read more"Tirki nguta tappa tangka marninithi"
(Learning and knowledge are the pathway to alter the mind)
- Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien, Kaurna Elder
