Biostatistics, quantitative social science, data science. There’s a lot of names to describe what I do, which, fundamentally, is things with data. I love thinking about data in the real-world - how our worldview impacts data collection decisions, how data are used in a research context, and how I can best use data to help people answer the questions they have. At the end of the day, I want to contribute to research that ends up improving the lives of others.
I also think it’s important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are leading the research agenda, my place as a non-Indigenous person is to listen, collaborate, and support that agenda as best I can with the skills that I have.
PhD in Indigenous Epidemiology and Health, in progress
The University of Melbourne
Master of Biostatistics, 2018
The University of Melbourne
Bachelor of Arts, 2015
The University of Western Australia
R is my preferred language and I’m proficient with SQL and Stata
There are a lot of good questions out there being asked, I like helping figure out how to answer them
From start to finish I like my make sure my reports are reproducible and as automated as possible
Who doesn’t like taking some dirty data and giving it a good scrub
Sure, pictures speak a thousand words, but they might take a thousand lines of code too
The majority of my R knowledge is self-taught, so I’d say my Google-Fu is pretty good
Background: Reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the child protection system is a key target for the Australian government.
Objective: We aimed to provide more recent evidence on the population-level cumulative incidence of contacts for Aboriginal children with child protective services (CPS) in Western Australia (WA).
Participants and Setting: Linked administrative data was provided for WA CPS between 2000 and 2015 for 33,709 Aboriginal children born in WA between 2000 and 2013.
Methods: Descriptive summaries and cumulative incidence estimates were used to examine changes in CPS contact trends over time and within sibling groups.
Results: There was an increase in early-childhood contacts for children born more recently, with 7.6% and 2.3% of children born in 2000–2001 having a notification and placement in out-of-home care by age one, respectively, compared to 15.1% and 4.3% of children born in 2012–2013. Among sibling groups where at least one sibling had a CPS contact, approximately half of children had their first contacts on the same date as another sibling. For children born after one of their siblings had been placed in out-of-home care, 31.9% had themselves been placed in out-of-home care by age one.
Conclusions: Multiple children tend to be placed into out-of-home care when at least one sibling is, which is likely to have a significant impact on families affected. The additional risk of placement also carries over to children born after the first removal in a sibling group, highlighting the need for further support to prevent future removals.