BA (Psych), Macquarie University; MA (Psych), Sydney University; MOHS, Sydney University; PhD (UNSW)
Senior research fellow

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


Rebecca Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow at Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research, and has written and contributed to numerous reports, book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. Rebecca is a registered psychologist with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency and an injury epidemiologist. Rebecca's PhD on the ‘Development and application of a tool to evaluate injury surveillance systems’ was awarded best contribution to ‘Advances on Injury Research and Surveillance’ at the 9th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in 2008. Recent research examining the cost of paediatric trauma was awarded the ‘Best research oral presentation’ at the Australasian Injury Prevention Conference in 2013.
Rebecca has extensive experience in analysing large injury-related administrative data collections (such as hospital admissions, emergency department presentations, trauma and mortality data) and linked data collections to investigate the burden of injury. 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 road trauma, paediatric trauma, work-related injuries, water safety, and falls injury prevention.

Dr Mitchell is currently the Chief Investigator (CIA) on the second Population Health Research Network proof of concept project for national data linkage examining injury attributable health care use and mortality in Australia, she is CIB on research examining injury-related hospitalisations in people with dementia, joint-CIA on research examining the impact of dementia on access to and outcomes from rehabilitation following fracture-related hospitalisation, and CIA on research examining transitions between home, hospital and residential aged car for people with and without dementia - all funded by the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, and is a CI on a research grant from the Bupa Health Foundation to improve outcomes for people with osteoporotic hip fracture. Dr Mitchell is CIC on a NHMRC Partnerships Grant examining paediatric care pathways, the appropriateness and the processes of care for paediatric trauma and is CIC on a program of research examining paediatric trauma, trauma services, parental impact and child health outcomes funded by the Day of Difference Foundation.

Previously, Dr Mitchell was an APDI on an ARC-linkage grant to develop a tool to assess the human factors contribution to patient safety adverse events in hospitals. She was a CIA on three projects examining road traffic causalities through data linkage funded by Transport for NSW and the NSW Motor Accidents Authority, she was also the CIA on a WorkCover NSW Applied Research grant that developed and assessed the usability of a tool to assess fleet safety management practices in light vehicles, CIA on a project examining rock fishing safety in NSW, CIA conducting an epidemiological review of surf sport injuries in Australia for Surf Life Saving Australia, and the CIA on a research grant funded by NSW Ministry of Health and the NSW Clinical Excellence Commission that described the sub-acute and non-acute health service use of fallers and non-fallers following emergency department presentation and/or hospital admission using linked health data.

Professional Activities

Dr Mitchell has previously worked as the Acting Manager of the Injury Prevention and Policy Branch of the NSW Ministry of Health and 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, 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.