Victorian Minister for Health the Hon. John Thwaites MP presents the Award to Dr Martha Sinclair (right) and Dr Margaret Hellard (left).

The Water Quality Study Team from the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine has won the Victorian Dept of Human Services 2000 Award for Excellence for Public Health Research.

The Awards are given in three categories; Public Health Research, Public Health Development, and Public Health Delivery. One award for Excellence and one for Innovation are given in each category, making six in total.

The winners were announced by Professor John Catford, Director of the Public Health Branch of DHS, at the annual dinner of the Victorian Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia on Thursday 10 August.

The Awards were presented by the Victorian Minister for Health the Hon. John Thwaites MP. Dr Martha Sinclair and Dr Margaret Hellard accepted the Award on behalf of the Water Quality Study team (other senior team members were Assoc Professor Kit Fairley and Dr Andrew Forbes ).

Also at the event were Emeritus Professor Nancy Millis (Chair of CRC for Water Quality and Treatment) and Professor John McNeil (CRC Program Coordinator - Public Health Risk Assessment, and Head of Dept. of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University).

The Water Quality Study was designed to determine the contribution of microorganisms in drinking water to gastroenteritis in the community. The $3 million study involved 600 families in Melbourne's eastern and south eastern suburbs. The results of the study were released in April this year.