DrJustin Lawson

Research interests include:
Contact with nature, nature-based interventions/solutions, eco-health, ecological-cultural determinants of health, planetary health, spirituality and nature, greening urban space, biodiversity conservation, food systems, alternative technologies, augmented/virtual reality.

Current projects:
• Course wide approaches to reviewing the impact of generative Artificial Intelligence on assessment

• Planetary health and workforce
• Developing inclusive and relational practitioners: health student, staff and industry perspectives
• Building resilience in at-risk rural communities through improving media communication on climate change policies KONEKSI Australia-Indonesia joint initiative
• The application of campus spaces to improve mental health in students and community: An examination of a novel implementation of Forest Therapy in university campus spaces
• Nature based design in stroke rehabilitation environments (co-supervised PhD program)
• Therapeutic horticulture for autistic adults (co-supervised PhD program)
• Improving individuals’ health and wellbeing through horses and virtual reality (co-supervised PhD program)
• Exploring the relationship between nature exposure and subjective wellbeing
• Ethnomedicine in Fiji and potential cost benefits

Past projects:
• Health, environment and sustainability: workforce analysis
• Localising the global: toward holistic indices that promote and measure healthy and sustainable living
• Food for thought, research and learning: the contribution of health and sustainability to university core business through an examination of Deakin University food culture
• Greening Deakin, greening communities: setting up community gardens
• Climate change and health evaluation indicators
• Curriculum development in targeted majors within the Bachelor of Health Sciences
• Switched on nature: developing a typology of experience in nature with EEG responses
• An analysis of faith-based community responses to issues of sustainability and biodiversity
• Abrahamic communities’ involvement in environmental, energy and water efficiency issues

Supervised Masters/Honours projects:

• Animal-assisted therapies in youth detention

• Application of neem in allopathy

• Efficacy of ayurveda in treating diabetes

• Health needs assessment in remote communities in Fiji

• Professionals’ views of early childhood intervention for infants and toddlers at risk of disability or developmental delay
• Motivations of membership with 'Friends Of’ groups
• Children as champions of change: engaging young families to increase vegetable consumption in the primary years
• Applying the Mandala of Health in the Anthropocene
• Wildlife to wellbeing: the multiple values of citizen science and new technology
• Pawsitive connections: do pet support programs improve the lives of older adults?
• Minimising harm to elder people from heatwaves in Victoria, Australia
• Climate change, urbanisation and public health: a critique of urban design plans in Australian cities
• Implications of community gardens on public health in Australia
• Community gardens and their impact on modern day health and wellbeing
• Food insecurity prevalence in refugees and asylum seekers in developed countries
• Creating rooftop gardens for urban environments
• Second nature: the natural environment promoting health of older adults
• The effect of heatwaves on ambulance case load in Tasmania
• The creation of a composite indicator for cultural safety from the patients’ perspective
• Vegetation types within urban environment and the links to mental health
• Indoor air pollution and its impact on respiratory health of the exposed population in rural community of Nepal
• The importance of green space in healthcare facilities
• Water access to vulnerable communities in India
• Quality of healthcare and the race of a patient
• Effects of the three gorges dam on adjacent communities
• Competencies of the health & sustainability field
• Health, environment and sustainability: analyzing emerging career opportunities and workforce requirements
• Open space and effect on psychological development of children
• The use of green prescriptions
• Food system mapping in Victoria

Member:
Health, Nature and Sustainability Research Group
TechnEcology
Sustainable Health and Environments Network
HOME

Associate Member:
Institute of Health Transformation - Determinants Group