BA (Psych), Macquarie University; MA (Psych), Sydney University; MOHS, Sydney University; PhD (UNSW)
Post-doctoral research fellow

Phone: 9385-7555
Fax: 9385-6637
Email: r.mitchell@unsw.edu.au

Rebecca Mitchell has been working in the area of injury prevention for over 15 years and she has contributed to numerous reports, book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. Rebecca is a registered psychologist and has Masters degrees in the Arts (Psychology) and in Occupational Health and Safety. In 2008, she completed her PhD on the 'Development and application of a tool to evaluate injury surveillance systems' and this research was awarded best contribution to 'Advances on Injury Research and Surveillance' at the 9th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in 2008.

Rebecca has extensive experience in analysing large injury-related administrative data collections (such as hospital admissions, emergency department presentations, trauma and mortality data) to investigate the burden of injury in Australia. She also has experience in the design of survey questions, having designed questions for NSW Health's Population-based health survey. Her primary research interests include injury surveillance methods, data quality, evaluative tool development, trauma services research, and epidemiological and evaluation studies, particularly in the areas of non-fatal and fatal work-related injuries, road trauma, water safety, patient safety, and falls injury prevention.

Professional Activities

Previously, Rebecca has worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Injury Prevention and Policy Branch of the NSW Department of Health where she was involved in injury prevention policy development and numerous injury prevention programs, such as the NSW Water Safety Taskforce, falls injury prevention, and a trial the World Health Organization's Safe Communities model. While at NSW Health, Rebecca was the recipient of the NSW Department of Health Award for Excellence in September 2003. Rebecca also worked as a Senior Officer in the Epidemiology Unit at the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC; now Safework Australia). While working at NOHSC, she was involved in an investigation of work-related fatalities in Australia, which included the identification of contributing factors to fatal incidents in industries such as agriculture, construction, forestry, fishing, and road transport, and Rebecca was a recipient of a public service Australia Day Achievement Medal in 2000. Other projects at NOHSC included the development of positive performance indicators of OHS performance for the construction industry in Australia; the evaluation of the implementation of the National OHS Improvement Framework in Australia; and the evaluation of an 8 and 12 h shiftwork roster system.

All Rebecca's publications are here.