Rebecca Ivers

Rebecca Q. Ivers is an Australian academic known for her work in injury prevention and trauma care research.

Professor Rebecca Ivers AM FRSN FAHMS
Personal details
Born	Rebecca Q. Ivers
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Medical researcher

Career and research

Ivers is Scientia Professor, and Head of the School of Population Health at the University of New South Wales, an honorary Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health and previously National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow.^[1] She was awarded the 2018 Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship^[2] and named on the Australian Financial Review and Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards in 2014.^[3]

She is an injury epidemiologist and a public health researcher. She has been credited with influencing Australian government legislation relating to graduated driver licensing.^[4]

She has also been involved in a number of studies working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, including analysis of driving behaviour and crashes^[5] and preventing avoidable injuries among children.^[6] Recent work on burn injury has highlighted the need for systems change regarding delivery of care.

Ivers has written editorials for the Sydney Morning Herald on topics including alcohol advertising and sports,^[7] gun laws,^[8] bicycle safety and helmets,^[9] and road safety in general.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} She has also written several editorials for Croakey on various public health topics.^[15][16][17] She has also commented on the equalizing effect of COVID-19 on academic research.^[18]

Ivers has overseen studies with a global reach examining the burden and risk factors for injury in low-income settings, including Vietnam, India and China. Current global projects involve a large scale initiative implementing community drowning interventions in Bangladesh, and work on scalable interventions for drowning in India and Vietnam.^[19] She also leads work on fracture care working with investigators from McMasters University on a NHMRC funded prospective study of 40,000 people examining the incidence and predictors of mortality in people sustaining traumatic fractures in low income country settings.^[20] She coauthored the WHO Step Safety Report which highlighted rates of life impacting falls and new prevention strategies.

Selected publications

• Liu, B.C.; Ivers, R.; Norton, R.; Boufous, S.; Blows, S.; Lo, S.K. (2008). Cochrane Injuries Group (ed.). "Helmets for preventing injury in motorcycle riders". Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 4 (1): CD004333. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004333.pub3. hdl:10536/DRO/DU:30009360. PMID 18254047.
• Cumming, R.G.; Ivers, R.; Clemson, L.; Cullen, J.; Hayes, M. F.; Tanzer, M.; Mitchell, P. (2007). "Improving Vision to Prevent Falls in Frail Older People: A Randomized Trial: VISION IMPROVEMENT FOR FALLS PREVENTION". Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 55 (2): 175–181. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01046.x. PMID 17302652. S2CID 24638499.
• Ivers, R.; Senserrick, T.; Boufous, S.; Stevenson, M.; Chen, H.-Y.; Woodward, M.; Norton, R. (2009). "Novice Drivers' Risky Driving Behavior, Risk Perception, and Crash Risk: Findings From the DRIVE Study". American Journal of Public Health. 99 (9): 1638–1644. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.150367. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 2724457. PMID 19608953.
• Blows, S.; Ameratunga, S.; Ivers, R.Q.; Lo, S.K.; Norton, R. (2005). "Risky driving habits and motor vehicle driver injury". Accident Analysis & Prevention. 37 (4): 619–624. doi:10.1016/j.aap.2005.03.003. PMID 15949452.
• Blows, S.; Ivers, R.Q.; Connor, J.; Ameratunga, S.; Woodward, M.; Norton, R. (2005). "Marijuana use and car crash injury". Addiction. 100 (5): 605–611. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2005.01100.x. ISSN 0965-2140. PMID 15847617.

Awards and honours

• Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, 2023.^[21]
• Appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2023 King's Birthday Honours for "significant service to community health through injury prevention research and education".^[22]
• Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 2021^[23]
• National Health and Medical Research Council Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship (Public Health) 2018^[24]
• Winner, Innovation: Australian Financial Review and Westpac100 Women of Influence Awards 2014
• NSW Public Health Associations' Public Health Impact Award. July 2014
• Australian Injury Prevention Network (AIPN): 2013 AIPN Award for Sustained Achievement. November 2013
• Young Tall Poppy Award for Science. October 2008
• National Health and Medical Research Council Achievement Award. December 2007^[25]

References

1. "Professor Rebecca Ivers UNSW". Retrieved 24 July 2019.
2. "NHMRC honours leading public health advocate Rebecca Ivers". 3 July 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
3. "Professor Rebecca Ivers hailed as Australia's top female innovator". Retrieved 24 July 2019.
4. "Rebecca Ivers The George Institute for Global Health". The George Institute. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
5. Cullen, Patricia; Hunter, Kate; Clapham, Kathleen; Senserrick, Teresa; Rogers, Kris; Harrison, James E.; Ivers, Rebecca Q. (2020). "Road user behaviour, attitudes and crashes: a survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia" (PDF). Injury Prevention. 26 (2): 123–128. doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2018-043011. PMID 30837328. S2CID 73516073. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
6. "Australia failing to close the gap on injuries to Indigenous children, study finds". 6 February 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
7. "Alcohol must be benched from sports advertising". Sydney Morning Herald. 30 September 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
8. "Gun laws have saved many lives, so beware One Nation's secret agenda". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
9. "If adults don't wear bike helmets kids won't either". Sydney Morning Herald. 19 September 2017. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
10. "Raise legal driving age to 18: expert". Sydney Morning Herald. 18 September 2008. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
11. "Too many children are dying on the world's roads". Sydney Morning Herald. 7 May 2015. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
12. "Australian Indigenous road fatalities as bad as sub-Saharan Africa". Sydney Morning Herald. 19 September 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
13. Power, Julie (11 March 2021). "Car-crash risk up to four times higher for poor young drivers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
14. Power, Julie (26 September 2021). "Risky P-platers, risky adult drivers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
15. "Stop the snark and politicking. And get on with delivering an effective public health response". Croakey Health Media. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
16. "For World Health Day, a plea to "break the cycle of shame"". Croakey Health Media. 6 April 2022. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
17. "On the Glasgow Climate Pact, and colonialism, privilege, selfishness and spin". Croakey Health Media. 17 November 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
18. "Pandemic 'decolonising research' as developing nations take lead". Times Higher Education (THE). 5 August 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
19. Truong, Kevin (16 February 2017). "Drowning in low and middle income countries". The George Institute for Global Health. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
20. "INORMUS". www.inormus.ca. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
21. Rowney, Katie (12 October 2023). "AAHMS welcomes 27 new Fellows". AAHMS. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
22. "King's Birthday 2023 Honours - the full list". Sydney Morning Herald. Nine Entertainment Co. 11 June 2023. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
23. "1292nd Ordinary General Meeting" (PDF). The Royal Society of New South Wales. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
24. "2017 Research Excellence Awards | NHMRC".
25. Ivers, Rebecca (8 April 2013). "Rebecca Ivers". The George Institute for Global Health. Retrieved 25 July 2019.