part of the evaluation of the Queensland
Strategy for Chronic Disease 2005 - 2015
Professor Alan Lopez is Professor of Medical Statistics and Population Health and Head of the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland.
Prior to joining the University in January 2003, he worked at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, for 22 years where he held a series of technical and senior managerial posts including Chief Epidemiologist in WHO's Tobacco Control Program (1992-95), Manager of WHO's Program on Substance Abuse (1996-98), Director of the Epidemiology and Burden of Disease Unit (1999-2001) and Senior Science Advisor to the Director-General (2002).
Phil is Professor of Public and Environmental Health and Deputy Head, School of Population Health at the University of Queensland.
Prior to joining the University in July 2008, he held the position of Head of the School Population Health at the University of Western Australia.
Phil leads an environmental health research group. He holds dual qualifications in public health medicine (FAFPHM) and in ecology (PhD), a background that has allowed him to become a leader in research on the relationship between human health and ecosystem health. He has over 150 publications on the environmental determinants of water-borne and mosquito-borne disease, and recently also led a major research programme on air quality and respiratory health through the Cooperative Research Centre for Asthma and Airways.
Phil was a member of the Board of Review Editors for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, is Co-Chair of the International Medical Geology Association, and remains an enthusiastic teacher.
Dr Chris Bain is Reader in Epidemiology within the School of Population Health, where he continues working on his long-standing research interests, cancer causes and control and health services evaluation. He cut his longitudinal research teeth as coordinator of the Nurses’ Health Study (Harvard) for some years, and is currently actively involved in a number of other prospective cohorts, including studies of Thai university students, New Ireland villagers and Australian nurses. He was also co-investigator of a recently-completed NHMRC capacity building grant in longitudinal research.
Dr Maria Donald is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Population Health. She has a BA (Hons1) and completed her PhD in 1998, both of which were awarded by the University of Queensland. Her principal areas of research include mental health promotion, suicide prevention, sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention and recently chronic disease prevention and management. The evaluation (both quantitative and qualitative) of multifaceted interventions concerned with health promotion and the delivery of health services has been a fundamental focus of her research.
She has an emerging interest in healthy public policy and has been involved in large-scale research and evaluation projects that have directly informed health policy developments in Australia, particularly in the area of mental health. This influence has taken the form of increasing the consideration of socio-ecological models of health and how broader environments can impact on health, and has strengthened our approach to the measurement of the complex interventions that are required to promote health among the Australian population. A key theme in her research has been collaboration across the research community, the implementation of policy, and the needs of patients and local communities.
Dr Ruth Crowther is a Research Fellow in the School of Population Health at The University of Queensland. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and an MPhil and PhD, both of which were awarded by the University of Manchester in the UK.
Whilst the focus of Ruths research to date has focused on community based rehabiltiation for people experiencing mental health difficulties, her current research role is as coordinator of the evaluation of the Queensland Health funded Strategy for Chronic Disease. An emerging area of interest lies in examining models of care for those with chronic illness co-morbid with depression. Ruth also teaches planning and development of health services with a particular focus on health service evaluation and health systems and policy development.
Dr Ieva Ozolins is a senior lecturer in the School of Population Health. Ieva received her PhD and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degrees at Monash University in Victoria, and Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners while working in South Australia. Ieva worked with the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland and in general practice in Brisbane before joining the School of Population Health to explore her interest in public health policy.
Robert Ware is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland, where he is a member of the Longitudinal Studies Unit. Current areas of research are the generalisability of study results, in particular the impact of attrition, missing data and non-compliance.
Robert also teaches critical appraisal and offers research advice at the Brisbane Royal Children’s Hospital. Robert completed his Ph.D. degree in Statistics at the University of Canterbury in 2002, where he studied numerical methods for statistical approximations. Robert has worked on applied statistical problems in electrical engineering, medicine, hydrology and public health.
Dr Nelufa Begum is a Statistician in the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland since July 2008. She completed BSc (Hons.) and MSc in Statistics from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, and a PhD in Statistics from Monash University, Australia.
She is working with the Queensland Strategy for Chronic Disease Evaluation group and her current research areas are the chronic disease prevention and management, and women’s health in Australia.
Clancy Wall joined the Chronic Disease Evaluation Team in October 2008 as Project Manager for the Living with Diabetes Study. Clancy has a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Nutrition) from the Queensland University of Technology. Clancy is motivated by a strong desire to make a difference to people’s lives and the community whilst further developing and broadening her skills base.
Prior to joining the Chronic Disease Evaluation Team, Clancy coordinated a collaborative, community-based, multi-strategy health promotion project at The University of Queensland, which is aimed at improving healthy behaviours among women and children in Caboolture. During this time, Clancy developed cooking classes which were aimed at improving women’s knowledge, skills and confidence in healthy food preparation, food choices and cooking.
Marion joined the Chronic Disease Evaluation Team in January 2009 as Project Manager of Chronic Disease Partnership Interviews. She has a keen interest in evaluation and assessment gained from previous research projects and from within the recruitment, marketing and sales industry.
Prior to joining Chronic Disease Evaluation Team, Marion worked for a period of three years at School of Population Health with Queensland Evaluation Group. This group evaluate drugs and pharmaceuticals for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule on behalf of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.
Before joining School of Population Health Marion assisted and co-ordinated the Longitudinal Study of Ageing in Women (LAW Study) at Betty Byrne Henderson Women’s Health Research Centre at the RBWH for a period of three years.
The Living with Diabetes Study has been developed with the guidance and input from many individuals. In particular, we acknowledge the following individuals who make up the Queensland Strategy for Chronic Disease Evaluation Working Group for their ongoing input:
Coordinating Epidemiologist, Population Health Branch, Queensland Health
Director of Epidemiology, Queensland Health
Professor, School of Human Services, Griffith University
Epidemiologist (Research and Evaluation), West Moreton Public Health, Queensland Health
Epidemiologist, Queensland Health
Chronic Disease Coordinator, Innisfail Health Service District, Queensland Health
