Dr Patrick Rawstorne

Dr Patrick Rawstorne is a clinical psychologist, researcher, higher education educator, psychometrician, and social scientist. He was previously a co-Director of the International Public Health program in the School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, and provided leadership in several areas including curriculum design and development. He convened two post-graduate courses, 'PHCM9605 International Health' and 'PHCM9622 Global HIV Epidemic: Social aspects and impacts', as well as giving guest lectures in several other undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

His research has focussed primarily on the social epidemiology of disadvantaged groups, particularly in the context of HIV and young people accessing alcohol and drug (AOD) treatment services. He has a particular research interest in structural disadvantage and inequity, as well as in mental health, individual and community well-being, and in survey methods including the exploration of innovative and unconventional ways of administering and measuring  psychological constructs.

Patrick’s research has been situated in Australia as well as in many Asia and Pacific Island Countries, where he developed strong working relationships with community-based and civil society organisations representing studied populations. He is experienced in various research designs and methods including Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) to recruit and sample hard-to-reach populations, and has expertise in survey methods. He also develops and psychometrically tests scales that measure psychological constructs. His projects have been funded by Category 1 grants (3 ARC Linkage grants), category 2 and 3 grants (DFAT; World Bank; Global Fund) and two UNSW Learning and Teaching grants.