Dr Brittany Johnson

Dr Brittany Johnson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Caring Futures Institute,and a The Hospital Research Foundation Group Early-Mid Career Research Fellow. She obtained a PhD in Public Health (Flinders University, conferred 2020) which identified intervention content to support parents to reduce provision of unhealthy foods to their young children, during the transition from preschool to school.

Brittany's research focusses on improving children and families health behaviours, including diet quality by reducing unhealthy food intake. She has expertise in applying behaviour change theory and creating supportive environments where children and families live, work, learn and play. This includes a research focus on building the evidence for school-provided meals in Australian schools.

She leads the deconstructing interventions component of the TOPCHILD Collaboration funded by an NHMRC Ideas Grant (2020-23). The TOPCHILD Collaboration is an international project is bringing together researchers from over 20 countries to transform early childhood obesity prevention, by exploring past, ongoing and planned interventions to understand how they work, and for whom. Brittany is part of the NHMRC EPOCH-Translate Centre for Research Excellence, Translating Early Prevention of Obesity in Childhood (https://earlychildhoodobesity.com/)

Brittany is an Accredited Practising Dietitian with a background in public health nutrition and experience in working with Aboriginal communities and the child care sector to make healthy food choices.

Research interests:

• Children and families
• Health behaviours
• Unhealthy food intake
• Behaviour change
• School food
• Intervention design