Sexually transmitted infections and viral hepatitis

• 
  Research Group Leader
  Dr Simon Graham

  grahams1@unimelb.edu.au

  View researcher's webpage

  03 8344 8034

Research Overview

Simon is a NHMRC and senior research fellow based at the Peter Doherty Institute for infection and immunity. He led a community-based trial that successfully increased sexually transmitted infection (STI) and viral hepatitis testing and improved management of these infections among young Aboriginal people in regional towns in New South Wales. He is a graduate of the Master of Applied Epidemiology, a field epidemiology degree where he evaluated Australia’s National perinatal surveillance system and investigated a foodborne outbreak in Western Sydney. Simon previously worked in international development with AusAID in Canberra, the Australian Embassy in Bangkok, a local Thai non-government organisation in Bangkok and CARE international in Hanoi, Vietnam. He has an interest in field epidemiology that has clear community benefits.

Simon has received over AUD$1 million in competitive funding and held externally funded fellowships since receiving his PhD in 2014. In 2015 he received a McKenzie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Melbourne. In 2016, Simon received a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship and spent 12-months at the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training in New York City working with gay men and trans women. In 2017 he won an NHMRC fellowship and spent two-years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine working on a european gay mens study and a RCT of female sex workers in Zimbabwe. In 2018, he received an Endeavour Research Leadership fellowship from the Australian Department of Education and Training and spent six-months at the First Nations Health Authority in Vancouver, Canada. In 2020, he won an Edward Dyason travel grant and will spend a month with First Nation and Metis colleagues at the Well Living House, St Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto.

Funding

Lead Investigator

• 2020 – Dyason fellowship (Funder: Edward Clarence Dyason Fund); $5,000
• 2019 – Endeavour Research Leadership Award (Funder: Department of Education); $24,000
• 2017-2021 – Early career researcher fellowship (Funder: NHMRC); $419,768
• 2016 – Fulbright postdoctoral scholarship (Funder: Fulbright Commission); $42,000
• 2016 – Health service access of young Aboriginal people (Funder: Uni Melbourne); $40,000
• 2015-2017 – McKenzie Postdoctoral fellowship, (Funder: University of Melbourne); $240,000
• 2010-2014 – Aboriginal sexual health & hepatitis quality improvement project (Funder: NSW Health); $455,000

Investigator

• 2020-2021 – Developing a culturally responsive trauma-informed public health emergency response framework for First Nations families and communities during COVID-19 (Funder: Ramsey foundation); $399,000
• 2020-2021 – A rapid qualitative assessment of COVID-19 health needs in an urban Aboriginal community (Funder: NSW Health); $31,600
• 2018-2021 – Fostering Aboriginal sexual well-being by building on strengthens (Funder: ARC Indigenous Discovery Grant); $211,408
• 2017-2020– Establishing Digital-Land Rights and Reconnecting Indigenous Communities through Emerging Technologies, (Funder: ARC Linkages Grant); $473,000

Research Publications

1. Graham S, et al. Chronic hepatitis B prevalence in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people before and after implementing a universal vaccination program: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sex Health. 2019; 16(3):201-211.
2. Graham S, et al. Trends in hepatitis C infection among Aboriginal people attending Australian Needle and Syringe Program Centres, 1996-2016. Int J Drug Policy. 2017; 47:69-763.
3. Graham S et al. A sexual health quality improvement program (SHIMMER) triples chlamydia and gonorrhoea testing rates among young people attending Aboriginal primary health care services in Australia. BMC Infectious Diseases. 2015.15(1).
4. Graham et al. Attendance patterns and chlamydia and gonorrhoea testing among young people in Aboriginal primary health centres in NSW. Sex Health. 2015. 12:445-452
5. Graham S, et al. Epidemiology of chlamydia and gonorrhoea among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, 2000-2009. MJA. 2012. 197(11): 642-646.