CRCATSIH Program Leader: Alwin Chong

Program 2: Healthy Communities and Settings

Program 3: Enabling Policy and Systems

Alwin Chong is a Wakamin man from North Queensland and is currently the Indigenous Strategy and Development Coordinator for Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin. He is responsible for operationalising the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Development Strategy 2010–2015. This document has become known as the Aboriginal Employment Strategy and is framed around improving the recruitment experience for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, valuing and retaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and helping them to build careers with Menzies.

Alwin previously worked with the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia (AHCSA) for 10 years and prior to that spent nine years as a teacher and researcher at the University of South Australia. One of his major activities at AHCSA was to develop and implement a research agenda that could respond to the research interests of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. Alwin also managed the Aboriginal Health Research Ethics Committee, a sub-committee of the Council and the peak ethics body for Aboriginal health research in SA.

Alwin has also been a member of the SA Statewide Cancer Clinical Network, the Statewide Cardiology Clinical Network and the Statewide Rehabilitation Clinical Network. These networks have been established to develop a service plan covering all of SA using models of care based on population need. He was also a member of the Rural and Remote Mental Health Service Advisory Committee, which has been responsible for advocating and promoting the employment of Aboriginal consultants.

Alwin’s association with the CRC for Aboriginal Health and its predecessor the CRC for Aboriginal and Tropical Health dates back to 2003. He has been personally involved in key CRC activities, including as Project Leader for the project ‘Improving the Culture of Hospitals’ and assisting with the CRCAH’s successful bid in 2009 for a five-year extension to its research program as the CRC for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. 

Alwin is particularly keen to contribute to building the capacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health networks through his program leadership role in the CRCATSIH.