Senior Lecturer
Dr Kathleen Falster
PhD, MPH, BAppSc(Hons).
Medicine & Health
School of Population Health
I am a Senior Lecturer at UNSW's School of Population Health, where I teach epidemiological research methods in two postgraduate courses: (1) Foundations of Epidemiology (PHCM9794), and (2) Epidemiological Methods (PHCM9518). I have >15 years’ experience working in epidemiological research in Australia and Norway, including a PhD (awarded in 2010) and an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship with the Australian National University. I have extensive experience managing the design and implementation of multi-jurisdictional and multi-centre data linkage and cohort studies, including coordination of academics, clinicians, policy makers, and community organisations. I also have expertise in the management and analysis of large and complex administrative and cohort study datasets. Together with my collaborators, my goal is to generate evidence to inform policy and service delivery initiatives that will improve child population health, with a focus on disadvantaged children and families and reducing inequities. I work closely with policy makers in health, child protection, education and social policy to translate complex research findings into policy and practice.
Phone
+612 9065 9652
E-mail
Location
School of Population Health,
Room 317, Level 3, Samuels Building, Kensington Campus,
UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA
- Publications
- Grants
- Research Activities
- Teaching and Supervision
- 2020-2024 Transforming the health system response to child maltreatment: the need for cross-jurisdictional e-cohorts. NHMRC Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Grant ($1,248,388), CIA.
- 2021-2024 Aboriginal child restoration from out-of-home care: pathways for success. ARC Discovery Indigenous Grant ($427,685), CIC (Lead, data linkage component of project).
- 2020-2024. ACCESS: Aboriginal Community Controlled Ear health Support System: developing, embedding and evaluating best practice models of care. MRFF Grant ($887,186), CIF (Lead, data linkage component of project).
- 2021-2023 Evaluation of Sustaining NSW Families, NSW Health tender ($400,000), CI (Lead, outcomes evaluation using data linkage).
I am currently leading an NHMRC-funded multi-jurisdictional electronic cohort (e-cohort) study of child maltreatment in Australia. I am also a Chief Investigator on several other research grants and an evaluation where I lead the data linkage component of the research, including: (1) an ARC Indigenous Discovery grant led by Dr BJ Newton (UNSW Social Policy Research Centre; SPRC) focused on Aboriginal child removals and restoration in NSW; (2) an MRFF grant led by A/Prof. Hasantha Gunasekera at the University of Sydney focused on enhanced models of care to improve the ear health of Aboriginal children in NSW; and (3) a NSW Health evaluation of the Sustaining NSW Families program led by Prof. Ilan Katz (UNSW SPRC).
During my NHMRC Early Career Fellowship, I was a Chief Investigator and the Study Director of the NHMRC-funded 'Seeding Success' study that set out to identify factors that promote positive early childhood health and development in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in NSW. I also collaborated with the Indigenous Health Outcomes Patient Evaluation (IHOPE) study where I led or supervised research investigating health inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in NSW, including potentially avoidable hospitalisations, the receipt of surgical procedures for middle ear disease, and hospitalisations for unintentional injuries. The IHOPE study was recognised as one of the NHMRC's 'Ten of the Best' in 2015. For the last 10 years, I have also collaborated with the Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH) at the Sax Institute, contributing to research on injuries, asthma, ear health and hospitalisations in urban Aboriginal children.
In July 2021, I was invited to present at the Dept. of Communities and Justice Research Strategy launch; this video recording of the presentation provides an overview of some of the research that my colleagues and I have produced in recent years.
I teach epidemiological research methods in two postgraduate courses:
- Foundations of Epidemiology (PHCM9794) - Course co-convenor
- Causal Inference in Public Health (formerly Advanced Epidemiology) (PHCM9518) - Course convenor