DrHannah Pitt

Dr Hannah Pitt is a public health researcher. She currently holds an ARC Future Fellowship in the Institute for Health Transformation at Deakin University. Her research focuses on exploring the Commercial Determinants of Health and children and young people. She completed her PhD in 2018, which explored the influence and impact of sports betting advertising on children’s attitudes and consumption intentions. Her research interests have predominately explored the normalisation of gambling and the impact of gambling industry tactics on at risk population groups, such as children and young people, women, older adults, young men, people with intellectual disability, and those with a lived experience of gambling harm. More recently she has used her knowledge and expertise in gambling to expand out to other harmful industries including alcohol and fossil fuels. Her research interests relates to youth engagement and how we can more effectively engage children and young people in public health advocacy responses to address harmful industries. This includes creating mechanisms that meaningfully engage young people in the decision relating to issues that affect their health and wellbeing. 

Her current fellowship aims to understand the broad range of gambling marketing strategies that young people (16-24 years) are exposed
to and influenced by, and public health strategies to respond. 

Hannah is a predominately qualitative research she has extensive experience in using a range of qualitative research methods such as interviews, focus groups, online qualitative surveys and visual sociology techniques to explore community attitudes and perspectives towards different pressing health and social issues. Some of the broader research projects she is involved in includes women's perceptions of alcohol marketing, lived experiences of gambling harm, gendered corporate social responsibility strategies, women's conceptualisation of the commercial determinants of health, and the impact of the cost of living crisis on young women.

Her work has had significant impact on policy and practice, including being used as evidence to support restrictions relating to gambling marketing. As recognition of the significant impact my research has had on policy and practice, I was awarded the Alfred Deakin Medal for Doctoral Thesis (2018) and was a finalist for the Victorian Premiers Award Health and Medical Research (2019). Most recently, I was a Griffith University Discovery Award finalist at the Research Australia awards (2023) - the only researcher in the category from a public health or health promotion background.

She is currently currently on the Editorial Board of Health Promotion International, a Q1 Oxford University Press journal.