Professor Debra Anderson

Professor and Director of Research, Nursing and Midwifery, Queensland University of Technology

Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Social and Preventive Medicine (University of Queensland) (awarded 1999)

 Most significant contribution to the research area

Professor Debra Anderson has made a significant contribution to the improvement of women’s healthcare outcomes by developing a program of research in the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to promote women’s health. Research interests include managing menopausal symptoms, chronic disease prevention, mid-life and older women’s health and cross cultural comparisons of health related quality of life in midlife and ageing in women. Professor Anderson’s research focuses on understanding the basis and effects of risk behaviours in midlife and older women and the interventions to change them, focusing on wellness and healthy behaviours. Her research aims to promote healthy behaviour change in women with chronic disease including women with diabetes and breast cancer survivors including physical activity, dietary intake, stress management, and smoking cessation; and to develop and test interventions that promote these behaviours.

• Authored a highly successful book, The Menopause Made Simple Program, published by Allen & Unwin, which has been distributed throughout Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the UK and the USA.

 • CI for high impact research projects such as, The Australian/ Japanese Midlife Women’s Health Study (profiled at the Ache World EXPO) and The Healthy Ageing of Women Study, the Women’s Wellness Research Program and the Interlace Study.

 • The Healthy Ageing of Women Study (HOW) concerns cross-cultural differences in midlife women’s health and an interest in translating these findings with an aim of preventing and treating chronic disease risk factors and preventing and minimising menopausal symptoms in women. This is a 10 year longitudinal study of Australian women which is being combined with the Interlace project.

 . The InterLACE Study (NHMRC 2012, $479,685; Anderson CIB), of which HOW is a part of provides a unique opportunity to conduct world-leading research in collaboration with key national and international investigators on women’s health studies from six nations. We will undertake cross-cohort research by combining data at the individual level from more than 150,000 participants from ten existing longitudinal studies to investigate the role of reproductive health across life on subsequent CVD events and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). CI Anderson is CIB on this NHMRC 2012 project, which is currently part of an international team of twelve persons from across the globe including scholars from the WHO, University of Massachusetts, Vanderbilt University,  University College, London, University of California, University of Hawaii, University of Leeds, Wake Forest University and Universities from Norway and Sweden.

 • The Women’s Wellness Program of Research is a series of four studies which are aimed at: decreasing menopausal symptoms in well women; decreasing chronic disease risk factors in women who have Diabetes; (Diabetes Women’s Wellness Program:  ARC Linkage), decreasing menopausal symptoms in women who have breast cancer (The Pink Women’s Wellness Program:  Cancer Council Queensland) and decreasing chronic disease in Indigenous Women ( IHBI and Diabetes Australia, Queensland).

 • Her research projects have supported many research students including two postdoctoral students (Endeavour and University of Washington postdoctoral Fellowships) who have worked with CI Anderson in 2008/09, and many PhD and Masters (Principle supervision CI Anderson).

 • Authored over 49 publications, including Menopause-the Journal of the North American Menopause Society, Complementary Therapies in Medicine and Qualitative Health Research. Recognised internationally as a leading researcher, CI Anderson has had numerous invitations to present her work at international and national conferences, having delivered invited plenary presentations at international conferences in Geneva, Brazil, USA and Japan in the past 10 years.

 Professor Anderson has further demonstrated her international standing in the field with:

• An invitation in 2009 to be a scholar at the World Health Organisation (Feb-April) working on the Global Strategic Plan for Nursing and Midwifery for 2009-2015.
• Receiving an Australian Academy of Science, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Research Fellowship to further her international collaborative work at Tohuku University in Japan.
• An invitation by Harvard University School of Public Health in 2006 and Harvard University Institute for Global Health in 2008 to discuss findings from her research.

Project highlights

• 2012-2015: InterLace: International Collaboration for a Life Course Approach to Reproductive Health and Chronic Disease Events, National Health and Medical Research Council
• 2010-2011:Indigenous Woman’s health and diabetes, Diabetes Australia (Qld); IHBI
• 2009 – 2010: Development of cancer survivorship self-management plans, Department of Health and Ageing.
• 2009- 2011: A behavioural intervention for managing treatment related menopause symptoms, Human health and Wellbeing Seeding Grant Scheme (HHWB) – IHBI, Cancer Council Queensland
• 2008 – 2011: The neglected dimension of community liveability: Impact on Social connectedness and active ageing, ARC Linkage projects with APAI components.
• 2008 – 2009: Developing a novel method for delivering a behavioural intervention for decreasing morbidity in women with a chronic disease: a randomized controlled trial. Australian Research Council Linkage.