Rafat Hussain

Rafat Hussain اردو: ڈاکٹر رفعت حسین is an Associate Professor of Population Health, at the Australian National University Medical School & the Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing (CRAHW), Research School of Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra. She was previously a Professor of Public Health and Deputy Head of the School of Rural Medicine at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.

Early life

Rafat Hussain was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She studied at the Mama Parsi School and St. Joseph’s College, Karachi. In 1978 she joined the Dow Medical College (now part of Dow University of Health Sciences) from where she obtained the MBBS degree in 1984. She completed her internship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Internal Medicine from the Civil Hospital, Karachi.

Career

From 1987 to 1993 she worked as an academic at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, where she was actively involved in teaching, clinical care and establishment of primary health care programs. In between she completed her Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She also did a 5-month internship at the Family Health International (FHI).

She was Principal Investigator during 1992-93 on a project ‘Community Perceptions and Management of Acute Respiratory Infections in Urban Slums of Karachi’, funded by Harvard Institute for International Development, USA. She was also Co-Investigator from 1990-93 on a project ‘Pregnancy Outcome & Child Survival Study’. This was a four-year longitudinal study to assess the prevalence of low birth weight; and child growth and development including the effects of under-nutrition). Funded by the National Institutes of Health (Division of Reproductive Epidemiology), USA.

In 1993 she obtained a scholarship to undertake a Graduate Diploma in Demography followed by PhD in Epidemiology & Population Health from the Australian National University which she completed in 1998. She was Principal Investigator during 1995-97 on the project ‘The Role of Inbreeding as a Determinant of Pregnancy Outcome and Child Survival in Pakistan ’. This was funded by the Health Transition Centre and National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University.

Dr Hussain has worked as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Health and Nutrition at University of Wollongong and as a Visiting Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. At University of New England, she was a Senior Lecturer (2000–04) and Associate Professor in Health Management (2005–09). From 2002-13, she was also the Research Higher Degree Coordinator for masters by research and doctoral degrees including Doctor of Health Services Management and PHD. From 2007 onwards she was associated with the establishment of the School of Rural Medicine at the University of New England, a joint venture with School of Medicine & Public Health at the University of Newcastle to constitute the Joint Medical Program (JMP) across the two universities. She was the Deputy Head of School from 2007-2015, and in between also served as the Acting Head of School (2010–11).

Her research interests include Ageing and disabilities, population health and well-being, women's health and sexual health, health promotion, and health services research. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed international journals and has over 3500 citations to her published works. She has been awarded nearly 4 million dollars in research funding and has been an investigator on a number of research projects including a current study on ageing & disabilities funded by the Australian Research Council. Dr Hussain is an Associate Investigator at the Centre for Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), funded by Australian Research Council. A full list of her publications and citation metrics is available on Google Scholar