Derrick is a research data specialist with interests in cardiovascular epidemiology, health services research, pharmacoepidemiology (medicines use evaluation), ageing and frailty.  He has experience working with various data types including aggregated data, cohort data, trial data and administrative data.  He has over 11 years’ hands-on experience working on large person-level linked health datasets relating to patient use of medical services like hospital, emergency, mortality, cancer, pharmacy dispensing, and medical benefits scheme.  He continues to build his expertise through involvement with data-intensive research projects within the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Centre and Centre for Health Services Research at The University of Western Australia (UWA), and through collaborations with the Medicines Intelligence Centre for Research Excellence and National Stroke Data Linkage Interest Group.  He supervises students on their research projects and is involved in teaching linked health data courses at UWA.  In addition to data-intensive quantitative research projects, he has experiences in conducting randomised controlled trials (RCT), qualitative studies, process evaluation and scoping reviews.

Continuing Professional Development
His continuing professional development activities include completition of:
- Introduction to High Performance Computing (HPC) at UWA (Aug 2023)
- Economic evaluation of health care (UWA, 2021)
- Risk estimation - new developments short course (World Congress of Epidemiology, 2021)
- Introduction to health economics (UWA, 2020)
- Pragmatic trials workshop (Western Australian Health Translation Network, 2019)
- Advanced epidemiology short course (UWA, 2018)
- Working with Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) data (University of South Australia, 2016)
- Introduction to PBS data (University of South Australia, 2016)
- Longitudinal data analysis (UWA, 2015)

Current professional involvement

• Editor, International Journal of Population Data Science (Sep 2023-present)
• Member, Medicines Intelligence Centre for Research Excellence (2021-present)
• Member, National Stroke Data Linkage Interest Group (2018-present)
  

Leadership role

• Co-lead, Methods and Data portfolio, Medicines Intelligence Centre for Research Excellence (2023-2024)

International standing

• Member, International Population Data Linkage Network (2018-present).
• Presented at international conferences (Europe, North America, New Zealand) and have published in international journals, providing exposure for my research.

Service roles to Universities

• Examiner for Honours and Masters’ dissertations for UWA and other Universities.
• Early-mid-career researcher co-ordinator, School of Population and Global Health, UWA (2020-2021)
• Social media co-ordinator, Centre for Health Services Research, UWA (2015-2019)

Other service roles

• Organising committee and session co-chair for the 2022 National Stroke Data Linkage Interest Group virtual symposium
• Organising committee and session co-chair for the 2021 Medicines Intelligence Centre for Research Excellence Annual Research Symposium and Policy Forum
• Organising committee for the 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Epidemiological Association

Supervision and mentoring

• Doctor of Medicine (MD) student research projects

Peer review involvement

Have reviewed for various journals such as BMC Health Services Research, BMC Nephrology, BMJ Open, Cancer Epidemiology, Health and Aging, Health and Quality Life Outcomes, Heart Lung and Circulation, International Journal of Population Data Science, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Maturitas, Medical Journal of Australia, and The Journal of Nutrition.  I have also reviewed abstracts for various national and international conferences.

Providing epidemiological expertise to the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) on their “Heat health vulnerability index” project (2021-present).

• Comparative and cost effectiveness of different protocols of pentosan polysulfate sodium in ssteoarthritis: repurposing an old drug (RCT)
• Developing novel epidemiological models to evaluate the impact of temperature extremes on human health in the urban setting
• Services provided and outcomes for patients suspected of experiencing a heart attack or stroke and transported by the Royal Flying Doctor Services (RFDS) to hospitals across Western Australia
• Is the incidence of heart attack still decreasing in Australia? Developing reliable methods for monitoring trends in myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease

• School of Population and Global Health seeding grant 2024-2025: Chief Investigator A.  Developing novel epidemiological models to evaluate the impact of heat extremes on human health in the urban setting. $9,600.
• Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences research grant 2019-2022: Chief Investigator A.  Process evaluation: Real-world data to evaluate the implementation of a randomised control community pulmonary rehabilitation trial for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). $24,950.
• Western Australian Department of Health Research Translation project 2017-2020: Chief Investigator A.  Pilot study to determine cost effectiveness of extending the community pulmonary rehabilitation phase 3 program beyond the initial 10 weeks. $239,440
• National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) in Medicines and Ageing 2017-2018: Chief Investigator A. Identifying barriers and priority areas for building workforce capacity in pharmacoepidemiology research. $27,774
• UWA Research Collaboration award 2016: Chief Investigator B. Comparative analyses of coronary heart disease epidemiology in Australia and England. $11,480
• NHMRC 2014-2017: Associate Investigator. Long-term use and cost-effectiveness of secondary prevention medications for heart disease in WA seniors. $729,513
• NHMRC PhD Scholarship 2004-2008

2014-present: Involved in teaching the "Introductory Analysis of Linked Health Data" and "Advanced Analysis of Linked Health Data" at UWA.

1. Research Fellow, Western Australian Centre for Rural Health, The University of Western Australia (2012-14)
2. Research Associate, Western Australian Centre for Health and Ageing, The University of Western Australia (2009-11)
3. Research Associate, Western Australian Centre for Cancer and Palliative Care, Edith Cowan University (2008-09)