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Professor Annette Dobson

Professor Annette Dobson PhD (James Cook), 1974
Joint Mathematics & Population Health
Email: a.dobson@sph.uq.edu.au

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Biostatistics
· Generalised linear modelling - I have recently revised my textbook on this topic
· Clinical biostatistics - this field covers a range of statistical methods relevant to clinical medicine
· Statistical methods relevant to longitudinal studies.

Epidemiology
· Cardiovascular disease
· Women's health

RESEARCH PROJECTS
Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health
This is a large national project involving more than 40,000 women and designed to run for at least 20 years. The goal is to examine factors that affect the health of women and their use of health services in the context of their personal, family, social and economic circumstances. It involves a large research team which includes people with expertise in statistics, psychology, sociology, medicine, exercise, nutrition, etc. I am the director of the project.

Methodology for Longitudinal Studies
These studies are becoming popular worldwide because they hold the promise of solving questions relating to causation which cannot be realistically examined using other study designs. They are however very complex and expensive, and they pose substantial statistical challenges. A multidisciplinary group of researchers in the School of Population Health at UQ has a major grant to work on design, measurement and data analysis problems related to these studies.

Trends in coronary heart disease
Heart disease has declined in Australia by more than 40% in the last 30 years, but it is still a leading cause of death, morbidity and health costs. Internationally there are huge differences in rates of heart disease. I directed one of the the Australian centers that participated in the World Health Organisation's MONICA project (to MONItor trends and determinants of Cardiovascular disease). I continue to be involved with the analysis of data from this project.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

K. Kuulasmaa, H. Tunstall-Pedoe, A. Dobson, S. Fortmann, S. Sans, H. Tolonen, A. Evans, M. Ferrario & J. Tuomilehto. 2000. 'Estimating the contribution of changes in classical risk factors to trends in coronary-event rates across the WHO MONICA Project populations', Lancet, 355, pp. 675-687.

M.T. King & A.J. Dobson. 2000. 'Estimating the responsiveness of an instrument using more than two repeated measures', Biometrics, 56, pp. 1197-1203.

C. Lee, A. Dobson, W. Brown, L. Adamson & The Women's Health Australia research team. 2000. 'Tracking participants: lessons from the Women's Health Australia project', Aust NZ J Public Health, 24, pp. 334-336.

R.F. Heller & A.J. Dobson. 2000. 'Disease impact number and population impact number: population perspectives to measures of risk and benefit', Brit Med J, 321, pp. 950-953.

J. Powers, J. Ball, L. Adamson & A. Dobson. 2000. 'Effectiveness of the National Death Index for establishing the vital status of older women in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health', Aust NZ J Public Health, 24, pp. 526-528.

P. McElduff & A.J. Dobson. 'Trends in coronary heart disease has the socio-economic differential changed?', Aust NZ J Public Health, 24, pp. 465-473.

P. McElduff, A. Dobson, K. Jamrozik & M. Hobbs. 2001. 'Opportunities for the control of coronary heart disease in Australia', Aust NZ J Public Health, 25, pp. 24-30.

P. McElduff & A.J. Dobson. 2001. 'Case fatality after an acute cardiac event the effects of smoking and alcohol consumption', J Clinical Epidemiology, 54, pp. 58-67.

A. Molarius, R.W. Parsons, A.J. Dobson, A. Evans, S.P. Fortmann, K. Jamrozik, K. Kuulasmaa, V. Moltchanov, S. Sans, J. Tuomilehto & P. Puska. 2001. 'Trends in cigarette smoking in 36 populations from the early 1980's to the mid 1990's: findings from the WHO MONICA Project', Am J Public Health, 91, pp. 206-212.

A.F. Young, A.J. Dobson & J.E. Byles. 2001. 'Determinants of general practitioner use among women in Australia', Soc Sci Med, 53, pp. 1641-1651.

G. Mishra, K. Ball, A. Dobson, J. Byles & P. Warner-Smith. 2001. 'The measurement of socioeconomic status: investigation of gender- and age-specific indicators in Australia: National Health Survey 1995', Social Indicators Research, 56, pp. 73-89.

A.F. Young, A.J. Dobson & J.E. Byles. 2001. 'Health services research using linked records: who consents and what is the gain?', Aust NZ J Public Health, 25, pp. 417-420.

A.P. Morton, M. Whitby, M-L McLaws, A. Dobson, S. McElwain, D. Looke, J. Stackelroth, A. Sartor. 2001. 'The application of statistical process control charts to the detection and monitoring of hospital-acquired infections', J Quality in Clinical Practice, 21, pp. 112-117.

J. Attia, J. Page, R.F. Heller & A.J. Dobson. 2002. 'Impact numbers in health policy decisions', J Epidemiology and Community Health, 56, pp. 600-605.

R.F. Heller, A.J. Dobson, J. Attia, J. Page. 2002. 'Impact numbers: measures of risk factor impact on the whole population from case control and cohort studies', J Epidemiology and Community Health, 56, pp.606-610.