UNSW Research Unit for Schizophrenia Epidemiology

The UNSW Research Unit for Schizophrenia Epidemiology was established in 2010, and is located within the O’Brien Centre at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst. The Unit is headed by Vaughan Carr, Professor of Schizophrenia Epidemiology and Population Health.

The Unit conducts epidemiological research into the causes of schizophrenia and related serious mental illnesses in order to inform the development of preventive intervention programmes. The Unit conducts studies utilising record-linkage of population databases to identify antecedents and risk/protective factors operating in mental health and illness, and to track treatment effects, and disease course and outcome.

The Unit has embarked recently on the design of a prospective longitudinal study of children, the “NSW Child Development Study”. This study, anticipated as a 15-20 year project following the development of more than 80,000 children into adulthood, aims to identify potential health-related vulnerability and protective factors operating in childhood, and to examine their relationships to a variety of health, well-being, and social outcomes in adolescence and young adulthood.

Staff:

• Professor Vaughan Carr
  (Head of the Unit)
  P: (02) 8382 1410

• Dr. Kristin Laurens
  (Senior Lecturer)
  P: (02) 8382 1409

• Dr. Melissa Green
  (Senior Lecturer)
  P: (02) 8382 1584

• Dr. Elizabeth Maloney
  (Postdoctoral Fellow)
  P: (02) 8382 1424

• Felicity Harris
  (Research Assistant)
  P: (02) 4033 5736