Research Fellows

Dr Zoe Aitken is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Equity working on the social determinants of health for people with disabilities. She has been working at the University of Melbourne since 2011 to pursue her interest in social epidemiology and was awarded an NHMRC postgraduate scholarship in 2015 to better understand how socioeconomic factors influence the mental health of people with disabilities. She has a particular interest in the analysis of longitudinal studies to answer causal questions about the complex interplay between socio-economic disadvantage and health.

Dr Samia Badji is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University. Samia’s applied micro-econometric work focuses on investment in human capital, specifically education and health. She is currently working on modelling cost-effective policy interventions for the CRE-DH.

Dr George Disney  is a Research Fellow working on the social determinants of health for people with disabilities, based at the Centre for Health Equity, University of Melbourne. He has a background in demography and social statistics. George’s most recent work in New Zealand was analysing socio-economic and ethnic inequalities in mortality and cancer. His research interests are in examining how socioeconomic inequality in society affects population health and population statistics including their uncertainty.

Dr Nicola Fortune is Research Fellow at the Centre for Disability Research and Policy at the University of Sydney, working on the development of a monitoring framework and indicators for reporting on the health of working-age adults with disabilities. Nicola’s background is in disability and health data development and analysis, including the development and implementation of the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI). Disability research projects on which she has collaborated have included a review of evidence on cross-sector service coordination for people with high and complex needs, development of a tool for monitoring community-based disability-inclusive programs, and measurement of met and unmet demand for specialist support and mainstream services among people with disabilities. Nicola has recently completed a PhD on the developmental appraisal of a draft classification of public health interventions.