Jessica Killian

Research Fellow, National Addiction and Mental Health Surveillance Unit, Turning Point and Adjunct Research Fellow, Monash University

Overview

Jessica is a research fellow in the National Addiction and Mental Health Surveillance Unit (NAMHSU) at Turning Point and an adjunct research fellow at Monash University.

She currently works across a variety of projects across the NAMHSU team, and leads and contributes to tasks including data analysis, report writing, and development of research and conference papers.

Background

Jessica (BSc, MSc) has a background in science, majoring in biochemistry and toxicology. She has worked in the public health field since 2004 and more recently in the alcohol and other drug sector.

Since joining Turning Point in 2011, Jessica has worked across a variety of projects including the DrugStats Handbook and Alcohol Statistics Series, Social determinants of alcohol, Hidden harms of alcohol and other drugs, and Wastewater analysis of alcohol and other drugs in Victoria.

Jessica was instrumental in the redevelopment of the Alcohol Statistics Series and Drugs Stats Handbooks into Victoria’s alcohol and drug online interactive mapping website – namely AODstats and has managed this site since 2014. She was also involved in a pilot project looking at the feasibility of turning AODstats into a National system.

Previous research roles, from other departments, have included working on various projects including the role of alcohol and drugs in injury deaths, child unintentional injury and child poisoning projects, evaluation of safe taxi ranks, marine boat license project, alcohol and drug involvement in work- and truck-related fatalities, analysis of proteins in blood, and analysis of enzymes in reproductive organs.

Research interests

Jessica’s research interests include:

Data analysis
Utilising large primary/secondary and/or administrative datasets to understand trends and harms related for addiction and mental health
Data quality and surveillance systems
Mapping of data
Evidence based research
Alcohol and other drug-related harms
Interaction between alcohol and other drug and injury outcomes
Harm reduction and prevention strategies
Injury prevention