Project: Acute respiratory infection presentations and prescribing in primary care
McVernon Group
Epidemiologists at the Doherty Institute undertake surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI) from a network of sentinel general practices from May to October each year. ILI data are used to epidemiologically characterise influenza seasons in Victoria and provide a practical alternative measure of influenza activity in the community, to notifiable laboratory confirmed influenza. They have also recently established a collaboration with the Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre at the University of Melbourne, in which data on patients presenting with upper respiratory tract infections to ten general practices over a five-year period will be extracted from general practice software.
The aim of this project is to assess whether the epidemiological information provided by automated data extraction is supplementary or redundant to that provided from sentinel general practices network.
This project would suit students with analytical skills, familiarity with statistical software such as Stata or R, and an interest in understanding how infectious data are used, understood and reported.
Contact project supervisor for further
information and application enquiries
McVernon Group
13 vacancies
Professor Jodie McVernon is a physician with subspecialty qualifications in public health and vaccinology. She has extensive expertise in clinical vaccine trials, epidemiologic studies and mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, gained at the University of Oxford, Health Protection Agency London and the University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on the application of a range of cross-disciplinary methodological approaches, including mathematical and computational models, to synthesise insights from basic biology, epidemiological data and sociological research. These models advance understanding of the observed epidemiology of infectious diseases and inform understanding of optimal interventions for disease control.
McVernon Group Current Projects
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Sample size determination for within-host animal studies of infection
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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Bias in vaccine effectiveness studies
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Measuring the association between influenza presentations and invasive group A Streptococcus infections (iGAS)
Master of Biomedical Science
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Buruli ulcers’ Most Wanted – Understanding the mosquito associated with the flesh-eating bacteria, Mycobacterium ulcerans.
Master of Biomedical Science
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Exploring the association between hepatitis C and invasive group A streptococcus infections (iGAS)
Master of Biomedical Science
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Invasive Streptococcus A – piecing together clinical, genomic and public health aspects of the puzzle
PhD/MPhil
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Optimising use of existing and emerging SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics to support the public health response to COVID-19
PhD/MPhil
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Modelling spatial and demographic heterogeneity of malaria transmission risk
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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Epidemiology of Scarlet Fever in Victoria
Master of Biomedical Science
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Optimal design of competitive mixture experiments
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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Investigating the household risk of group A Streptococcus infection
Master of Biomedical Science
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Understanding the impact of new testing for infectious diseases
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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Acute respiratory infection presentations and prescribing in primary care
Master of Biomedical Science
Research degrees at the Doherty Institute are administered by the University of Melbourne.