Staff Profile

AProf Deborah Loxton’s health research focuses on women’s health and wellbeing with a particular emphasis on the impact of major life events. AProf Loxton has a strong interest in women’s reproductive health and has examined health behaviour during pregnancy, cervical cancer screening and abuse, maternal health in the first years of motherhood, and antenatal behaviours associated with negative birth outcomes. She is recognised as an expert in women’s health with particular knowledge of intimate partner abuse.

Longitudinal methodology remains one of AProf Loxton’s primary research interests, as reflected by her work describing the methods and outcomes of longitudinal data collection and analysis. She has used both quantitative and qualitative and is now undertaking various projects that link longitudinal survey data with other datasets, such as the Midwives Data Collection in NSW, the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). AProf Loxton has pursued new methods for examining longitudinal qualitative data. She has chaired two symposia on this topic at an international conference, as well as chairing and convening the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) Qualitative Health Research Group.

AProf Loxton is the Deputy Director and member of the Steering Committee of the ALSWH at the Priority Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing. The ALSWH is a longitudinal cohort study conducted with three age groups (aged 18-23, 45-50 and 70-75 in 1996) of over 40,000 Australian women. AProf Loxton leads the team in currently recruiting a new cohort of 18-23 year olds. She has been responsible for operational oversight of the ALSWH since 2006 including survey design, cohort maintenance, data collection, budget and staff management.

AProf Loxton’s ALSWH research responsibilities include contributing to the design and conduct of ALSWH major reports, publications and other forms of dissemination. The most recently released ALSWH report described women’s adherence to health guidelines, including pregnancy specific guidelines. AProf Loxton co-led another ALSWH report which focussed on women’s reproductive health. The latter was used extensively to develop the National Women’s Health Policy of 2010. Other government reports authored by AProf Loxton have covered such topics as the health impact of abuse, domestic violence programs, and barriers to service delivery for young pregnant women and mothers.

AProf Loxton is a chief investigator on two projects: an ARC Linkage Grant (partnered with Family Planning NSW & Bayer Healthcare) that is exploring contraceptive use and access, and a Bupa Foundation grant examining maternal health outcomes in relation to mental health screening. Throughout her career AProf Loxton has been awarded $1,321,881 million in competitive external grant funding, $564,772 in competitive internal grants, and over $14.5 million in government and external consultancy funding.

AProf Loxton has built a national and international profile in her area of research, being an invited speaker and chairing symposia at international and national conferences. She has presented at nine international conferences and has been invited to speak on 15 different occasions at NGO and government events. Her research efforts have resulted in 43 journal publications (six in press), multiple conference presentations, one peer reviewed journal special edition, and ten major research reports for government.

In recognition of her expertise in intimate partner abuse, the Sax Institute commissioned AProf Loxton to produce quarterly reports concerning recent research in domestic and family violence for distribution to NSW state government policy agencies in 2009-10. Additionally, her research on domestic and family violence and sole motherhood has generated significant media interest.