Staff Profile

Career Summary

Biography

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Newcastle, 02/05/1992
• Bachelor of Science (Honours), University of Newcastle, 02/05/1987

Research

Research keywords

• Ageing
• Arthritis
• Community based intervention
• Health promotion
• Health services research
• Healthy ageing
• Needs assessment
• Quality use of medicines
• Womens health

Research expertise

A/Prof Parkinson is a behavioural scientist with a significant track record as a public health gerontologist, in terms of publications, presentations, grants and other funding, research conducted, and esteem factors. Since 2004, she has published 21 peer-reviewed articles, including within high ranking for field international journals. From Scopus, her current H index is 11, from 35 discoverable articles, with 203 citations since 2004. Since 2004, she has received over $2 million in research and evaluation funding, and been project lead in the conduct of 14 of 27 funded projects. Ass/Prof Parkinson has regularly presented papers and sessions at national and international conferences and workshops, as a presenter, facilitator and invited speaker, and has had a primary role in organising conferences on ageing. Since 2004 she has presented 25 conference papers, given seven invited talks at professional conferences and conducted four workshops or symposia. She recently organised, cochaired and presented at the successful multi country Depression as a comorbidity with chronic illness: Longitudinal research from the developed and developing world Symposium in July 2009 at the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics conference in Paris (one of only four symposia accepted from Australia). She conceived the idea for this Symposium, invited all collaborators (from Canada, UK and South Australia) and cochaired the session with Dr Somnath Chatterji from the World Health Organization. The symposium was included in the conference CME program. Over the last five years, she has developed an independent program of work around the theme of detection and management of chronic conditions in older age, focusing on the progress and impact of arthritis and depression as women age. This work is based predominantly within the Australian Longitudinal Study on Womens Health, which provides a unique resource to longitudinally explore the intersection of these conditions, and their fundamental impacts on health and quality of life for older people, intensively, across time, with successive survey waves, to answer internationally relevant research questions. This substantial program of work elucidates the primary causes of burden of illness in an ageing Australia, by examining the complex and multiple interactions between the individual, the environment and health among older people with arthritis and depression. Since 2003, A/Prof Parkinson has had three PhD completions, one Masters completion and two Honours completions. She is currently supervising three PhD students. A/Prof Parkinson has made a significant contribution at the national level to monitoring and implementation of National Medicines Policy through membership of relevant invited national committees: PHARM Committee, a Commonwealth Health Ministerial Advisory committee on quality use of medicines (2003-2008); National Prescribing Service Community Quality Use of Medicines Management Committee, responsible for oversight of a multi-million dollar national strategy for promoting community quality use of medicines (2003-2006). Since 2003, A/Prof Parkinson has made an ongoing and significant contribution to the field of gerontology through the Australian Association of Gerontology, acknowledged by her appointment as a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology in 2009. In early 2009, A/Prof Parkinson was appointed as Editor in Chief to the Australasian Journal on Ageing. A/Prof Parkinson is a gerontologist with an excellent national and very good international profile in ageing research, and has demonstrated a strong profile and upward trajectory in her program of ageing and chronic disease research.

Fields of Research

Memberships

Editorial Board.

• Editor - Australasian Journal on Ageing

National & International Standards Committees.

• Member - Pharmaceutical Health and Rational Use of Medicines Committee

Collaboration

Over the last five years, A/Prof Parkinson has developed an independent program of work around the theme of detection and management of chronic conditions in older age, focusing on the progress and impact of arthritis as women age, within the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH). ALSWH is a longitudinal population-based survey, which has been studying the health of a national sample of over 40,000 Australian women for more than 15 years. ALSWH was designed to explore factors that influence health among women who are broadly representative of the entire Australian female population. ALSWH provides a unique resource to longitudinally explore the intersection of arthritis and comorbidities, and their fundamental impacts on health and quality of life for older people, intensively, across time, with successive survey waves, to answer internationally relevant research questions. A focus of this work is to involve collaborators from Canada to situate the work within the international context. This substantial program of work will elucidate primary causes of burden of illness in an ageing Australia, by examining the complex and multiple interactions between the individual, the environment and health among older people with arthritis and depression, ensuring that Australia remains a leader in ageing and chronic disease.

Administrative

Administrative expertise

From 2003- 2006, A/Prof Parkinson was Healthy Ageing Theme Leader for the Centre for Research and Education in Ageing, at the University of Newcastle. The main outcome of this role was the formation and funding of the Priority Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing (PRCGHA). A/Prof Parkinson has been a member of the Leadership Group of the PRCGHA since its inception. As Senior Research Fellow, she has made a significant contribution to the consolidation of the Centre as a Priority Research Centre of the University of Newcastle, and as a nationally recognized centre characterized by innovation and excellence in ageing research. Her role as Senior Research Fellow encompasses responsibility for overseeing ageing-focused projects; reporting on current ageing research; project staff supervision; identifying and managing ageing funding and other opportunities; organising and chairing ageing-themed seminars; and representing the PRCGHA in external forums on ageing. A/Prof Parkinson is currently a member of the PRCGHA Management Committee.

A/Prof Parkinson is a member of the Public Health Teaching Committee, which aims to strategically examine and plan the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programs within Public Health, and of the University of Newcastle Centre for Health Record Linkage (NSW CHeReL) Grants Committee, responsible for critique of applications for support to conduct data linkage projects within the CHeReL framework.

In 2005, A/Prof Parkinson played a significant role in development and conduct of the Hunter Leadership Forum on Ageing as a member of the Steering Committee. The forum was a partnership between the University of Newcastle, the Hunter Economic Development Corporation and FordComm. More than 100 of the Hunters academics, civic and commercial leaders attended the inaugural Hunter Leadership Forum in November 2005, which considered the impact of ageing on our community, the opportunities that this change might bring, and how ageing should be accounted for in planning and decision-making.

A/Prof Parkinson also regularly provides scholarly review of Journal Articles: Drug & Alcohol Review Journal; Health Promotion, International; Health Promotion Journal of Australia; Preventive Medicine; Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health ; Medical Journal of Australia; Australasian Journal on Ageing; Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; Social Science and Medicine; Rheumatology; Grant Proposals: NHMRC; ARC Discovery International Reader, Healthway WA; and Conference Abstracts: Public Health Association of Australia; Australian Epidemiological Association; Australian Association of Gerontology.

A/Prof Parkinson was a member of the Scientific/Organising Committees for the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) Rural NSW Conferences in Kurri Kurri in 2004, and Tamworth in 2006; and is Co-Convener of the Emerging Researchers in Ageing conference planned for October 2010. She is a regular Session Chair at AAG conferences. A/Prof Parkinson has contributed to the development of local competence and projects in gerontology and ageing research through Hunter Ageing Research Network (Director 2006-ongoing) and AAG Hunter Chapter. She has served as AAG Hunter Chapter Honorary Secretary, (2005-2008); and Vice President (2008-2010).

A/Prof Parkinson was appointed Editor in Chief of the Australasian Journal on Ageing, which involves primary overview of editorial content of the premier regional journal on ageing, which has recently been Medline listed. This was a competitive process including an invitation to apply, and a formal application and interview.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Clinical Epidemiology
• Drug and Alcohol Misuse
• Health Promotion
• Research Methods
• Womens Health
• post graduate

Teaching expertise

A/Prof Parkinson has been responsible for on-the-job training of a significant number of current health promotion practitioners and researchers, in her role in Hunter Area Health Service. She has contributed to undergraduate teaching with occasional lectures on research methods and health promotion for occupational therapy, PDHealthPE, psychology and medical students. A/Prof Parkinson developed and taught modules for the Diploma/Masters Health Promotion postgraduate course at the University of Newcastle, between 1993 and 2003 and participated in several major reviews of this course. She taught within the Research Protocol Design module of the Masters Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Newcastle from 2004-2006 and participated in a major review of the course content. A/Prof Parkinson had a significant role in course development; including conduct of market research, curriculum development, meeting and workshop organisation, and tutoring for short courses, for the Department of Health and Ageing Public Health Education and Research Program Innovations funded Epidemiology of Ageing: The development and delivery of a modular course on Ageing and Population. The outcome of this project was the Public Health Implications of an Ageing Population postgraduate course, within the Masters of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Newcastle. This new course was developed by a faculty of national ageing experts and aimed to address the intersection between public health and ageing, taking a population view of ageing across the most relevant perspectives, such as aged care, social context, healthy ageing, participation, responses. Short courses of Public Health Implications of an Ageing Population were also conducted as a required output for the grant, and A/Prof Parkinson was a tutor for two sets of short courses. A/Prof Parkinson then developed a Public Health Implications of an Ageing Population Psychology Honours seminar series, through a major revision of the postgraduate course. The innovative format required students to act as discussants with the group on topics allocated to them, interspersed with lectures and discussion of media pieces on ageing. Since 2003, A/Prof Parkinson has had three PhD completions, one Masters completion and two Honours completions. She is currently supervising three PhD students.