2010 Fulbright Scholar: Dr Mary Haines

2010 Fulbright Scholar: Dr Mary Haines.

Dr Mary Haines, Honourary Senior Lecturer in the Sydney Medical School and Health Services Research Director at the Sax Institute, is set to enhance the health-care reform process in Australia by working in the US with international leaders in health-care evaluation.

Dr Haines has won a 2010 Fulbright Professional Scholarship to visit the US for three months to research health-care reform and will visit the Veterans' Health Administration's Health and Services Research and Development, the UCLA School of Public Health and the RAND Corporation in Los Angeles to research health-care evaluation.

"Implementing system-wide health-care reform is a policy priority in both the US and Australia. The question I will examine is 'will the reforms improve quality of care and how will we know?'" Mary said.

"National health agencies recognise the acute shortage of health system researchers in Australia to provide high quality evidence to inform healthcare reforms."

Through her Fulbright, Mary will be able to learn innovative methods in evaluation that she can apply to current projects in Australia. She also will establish the foundation of a long-term program of collaborative research with her US mentors.

"I propose to work with international leaders in health-care evaluation based at the VA and RAND. Australia does not have an equivalent group of leaders who have developed innovative methods to assess the effectiveness of health care, and who can provide me with in-depth mentoring and methodological training."

"The US group holds data repositories of all VA health care encounters that have similarities to Australian datasets; thus providing unique infrastructure to support a long-term collaboration."

Mary has a BA with honours in Psychology from the University of Sydney and a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from University College London. Since completing her PhD Mary has worked on health research and policy in the academic, private and independent sectors and is currently an Honourary Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

The prestigious Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by US Senator J William Fulbright and the US Government in 1946. Aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange, it operates between the US and 150 countries. In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and US Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra.

Mary is one of 25 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2010. Visit the Fulbright website.

Media inquiries: Jacqueline Chowns, jacqueline.chowns@sydney.edu.au, 0434 605 018