Ms Madeleine Powell
PhD, MPH, MHM, BNurs.
Madeleine Powell is an early career epidemiologist, with more than a decade of clinical and research experience in health. Her doctoral research (conferred March 2026) employed epidemiological methods applied to a whole-population cohort study of children in New South Wales to inform health system responses for children with prenatal substance exposure and child protection system contacts. Before commencing her PhD, Madeleine worked across diverse, multidisciplinary research projects, including clinical research aimed at improving patient care in intensive care; public health research focused on injury prevention, evidence synthesis on the comparative effectiveness of child protection prevention programs, the prevalence and harms of e-cigarette and substance use; and the co-design of an Aboriginal community-led child injury prevention project in rural NSW.
Madeleine is currently a Research Fellow working on the NSW Child E-Cohort Project, where she has contributes to multiple projects using the whole-population data asset to generate evidence to inform policy and service delivery to improve outcomes for families with multiple forms of disadvantage.
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- Teaching and Supervision
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Winner 2010 Undergraduate Student of the Year, Mater Clinical Teaching and Learning Award: Awarded Student of the Year by the Mater Hospital in recognition of my dedication to learning and patient care, competing against finalists from all health disciplines. |
Below are projects I lead or have collaborated on over the last five years that use/d the NSW Child E-Cohort data asset:
Research projects focused on the whole population or priority populations of children and families in NSW:
1. The ARC-funded Bring Them Home Keep Them Home project, led by Associate Professor BJ Newton, uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to inform the prevention of child removals and early restoration of Aboriginal children from out-of-home care (OOHC) in NSW.
2. The NSW Health funded evaluation of the Sustaining NSW Families program - the Outcome evaluation used local district screening and program data, linked to the NSW Child E-Cohort data asset, to emulate a trial of the program versus usual care on child outcomes in the first two years of life.
3. A NSW Health funded project to inform policy and service delivery for mothers, babies, children and families in the First 2000 Days.
Research projects focused on the whole population or priority populations of children and families across multiple jurisdictions:
4. An NHMRC-funded project to inform and evaluate policy and service delivery responses to children and families involved with child protection services in NSW and South Australia.
5. An NHMRC-funded project to inform policy and service delivery responses to support hospitalised injury and subsequent outcomes for Aboriginal children in NSW and South Australia.
6. An ARC-funded project focused on families with multiple and complex needs in NSW, South Australia and Western Australia.
My Research Supervision
2026-ongoing: Secondary supervisor, PhD candidate. Hearing the call: evidence to inform innovative models of care to improve ear health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in NSW.