Using a multidisciplinary approach to combat the burden of asbestos-related disease.

Australia was the world’s highest per capita consumer of asbestos in the previous century. As such, it is considered to be a sentinel site for observing, over time, the deleterious human health, environmental, economic and social effects associated with high levels asbestos exposure.1 The increasing awareness of the dangers of asbestos among asbestos workers in Australia and the public request for disease-oriented research resulted in the establishment in 2009 of the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute (ADRI), housed in the Bernie Banton Centre on the campus of the Concord Clinical School in Sydney.