Rebecca Mitchell PhD, MA

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 Ph.D. 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 pediatric trauma was awarded the ‘Best Research oral presentation’ at the Australasian Injury Prevention Conference in 2013. Rebecca has extensive experience in analyzing 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, pediatric trauma, work-related injuries, water safety, and fall 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 hospitalizations in people with dementia, joint-CIA on research examining the impact of dementia on access to and outcomes from rehabilitation following fracture-related hospitalization, 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 an NHMRC Partnerships Grant examining pediatric care pathways, the appropriateness, and the processes of care for pediatric trauma and is CIC on a program of research examining pediatric 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 sports 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.