Biography

Associate Professor Kypros Kypri is an NHMRC Research Fellow (CDA1) in alcohol-related injury epidemiology. He was trained in experimental and clinical psychology at the University of NSW, University of Otago, and University of California San Diego from 1994-1998. He completed his PhD in Injury Epidemiology at the University of Otago in 2002. He has established an alcohol research group at the University of Newcastle which is the hub of several national and international collaborative studies. These address a range of methodological, aetiological and intervention studies addressing the burden of injury and disease attributable to alcohol.

Involvement in Scientific Review

• Deputy Editor of Drug and Alcohol Review, an international peer-reviewed journal.

• Referee for national granting bodies in Australia, the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Canada.

• Scientific journal reviewer: JAMA, Archives of Internal Medicine, PLoS Medicine, MJA, Addiction, Alcohol & Alcoholism, Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy, University of Otago - New Zealand, 2003

Research

Research keywords

• Alcohol
• Health Behaviour
• Public Health

Research expertise

I am a behavioural scientist interested in the influence of the social and physical environmental on drinking behaviour, and in determining the effectiveness of strategies aimed at preventing alcohol-related harm. I am, or have been, a principal investigator on substantial competitive grants, from government agencies including: New Zealands Health Research Council and the Alcohol Advisory Council (joint funding of more than NZ$1.5M), the USAs National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (US$253,000), and the Western Australian government agency: Healthway (A$314,000). I was part of a team which won a large contract (NZ$940,000) to implement a national alcohol policing project in New Zealand, and have headed several smaller successful proposals.

I currently lead three international project teams of researchers working on ongoing projects: Modifiable Environmental Determinants of Alcohol-related Harm, Geospatial Aspects of Alcohol-related Harm, and Evaluation of Changes to the Drinking Age. I lead a new Australian project funded by the Hunter Medical Research Institute, and have won several research contracts as a consultant.

My work is reflected in 47 peer-reviewed publications (43 since 2002), including five invited papers. Most are published in leading public health journals or high-impact alcohol journals. The papers represent several coherent and interrelated areas of research: child and adolescent injury, epidemiology of young peoples drinking, web-based interventions, survey methods, and policy evaluation. They reveal expertise in a range of areas: use of official data, population surveys, intervention development, quasi-experimental study designs, and clinical trials. The clinical trials and survey methods studies have been recognised internationally for their innovation and careful implementation.

I have made significant contributions as a referee for leading journals in his research discipline, as an associate editor of Alcohol and Alcoholism and an executive editorial board member of Drug and Alcohol Review, for which I am currently Acting Executive Editor. I served on the Health Research Councils Public Health Assessing Committee in 2006, and have refereed for national granting bodies of the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands

I am currently supervisor of two PhD students, and have supervised a Masters of Public Health thesis, and two post-graduate projects. I have management responsibility for research staff, including four research fellows and two research assistants

Collaboration

I have initiated and been invited to participate in numerous highly productive collaborations, with leading researchers in Australia, USA, NZ, Canada, and the UK eg:

• Centre for Drug & Alcohol Studies, UQ (Saunders): 1998-2008.

I led a series of research projects on electronic screening and brief intervention, funded by the Health Research Council (NZ) in which Professor Saunders was a co-investigator. The research produced 8 publications in highly regarded journals with more than 350 citations, and has influenced the field and healthcare delivery.

• Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, USA (Voas, Paschall): 2003 to 2007.

I led the Minimum Drinking Age project, funded by NIH (PI: Voas). The collaboration produced papers in the American Journal of Public Health that continue to influence policy debate in several countries and the work has been the subject of international awards (eg, Giordis Postdoctoral Research Award, 2006) and invitations to give plenaries at international meetings.

• Ngai Tahu Maori Health Research Unit, University of Otago (Baxter): 2002-8.

I led the Hazardous Drinking Project (2001-7), and collaborated with A/Prof Baxter on study design, analysis, reporting and dissemination of research findings. This collaboration was critical to ensuring a Maori-focused approach to all phases of the research.

• National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University (Howat et al): 2005-10

Curtin developed the THRIVE intervention based on my e-SBI program and I led the design of a large RCT which has produced substantial scientific outputs (a trial in Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009) and the intervention is being used in universities in Australia (eg, UQ) and other countries (eg Yale University).

• Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, Toronto (Cunningham): 2003-.

I have collaborated with Prof John Cunningham on invited reviews of web-based interventions for hazardous drinking, on the design and evaluation of new interventions, including large clinical trials.

• London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (McCambridge), since 2007

I am co-leading the development of a new area of research in Research Participation Effects. The partnership has produced substantial rewards, including a Wellcome Trust fellowship (McCaimbridge), ARC Discovery Project, NHMRC project, publications in high profile journals (e.g., NEJM, JNCI), and a growing awareness in various fields of the importance of systematically studying these phenomena.

• Boston University School of Medicine (Saitz, Palfai, Rosenbloom), since 2006

I was the senior Australian investigator on a Center grant application (to NIH) for research on the prevention of adolescent risky drinking; have current projects with Saitz on the Australian HOAP trial (NHMRC), with Palfai on e-SBI for cannabis (NIAAA), and a proposal with Rosenbloom & Saitz for the development of an e-SBI i-Phone Ap.

• Injury Prevention Research Unit, University of Otago (Langley, Connor): since 2004.

I am responsible (via contract) for leading the alcohol research conducted within the IPRU. The collaboration benefits from the combination of my expertise in the alcohol field and IPRU’s unique expertise with injury data. It has yielded 40 papers and >800 citations since 2004, and has had major impact on the research field and public policy.

• National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (Mattick): since 2008

I am a chief investigator on a large ARC grant led by Prof Richard Mattick, examining the effects of parental supply of alcohol. The project has spawned several new hypotheses for which we are designing new studies to test.

• Alcohol Policy Research (Room, Chikritzhs, et al): since 2007

I am collaborating with a team of leading alcohol policy researchers from 5 Australian universities, studying the effects of local government alcohol policy, regulation of the night-time economy, and alcohol taxation.

Languages

• Greek

Fields of Research

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
• Hunter Medical Research Institute
• PRC - Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour

Group

• Hunter Medical Research Institute - Public Health

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

• Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and drugs
• Research Society on Alcoholism

Editorial Board.

• Editor - Drug and Alcohol Review (Journal of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and Drugs

Appointments

Awards

Research Award.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Alcohol Policy
• Health Behaviour

Teaching expertise

In my capacity as a part-time senior lecturer in the School of Medicine and Public Health, I taught modules in the following courses: Introduction to Health Promotion 2005-6, Health Promotion Strategy Selection 2004-6, as well as contributing to course development. I have given guest lectures in the School of Behavioural Sciences: Advanced Health Psychology 2004-6, and in the Bachelor of Medicine program in 2007.

As a research fellow at the University of Otago, while not employed to teach per se, I contributed to the teaching curriculum of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine by giving guest Lectures in: Survey Methods 2003, Health Promotion 2001-3, Public Health 2003.

I am currently developing an undergraduate course on the psychology of alcohol and drug use