Dr Christine Hallinan

ACRE Post Doctoral Research Fellow - University of Melbourne

Dr Christine Hallinan is an epidemiologist in the Department of General Practice (DGP) at the University of Melbourne. Her research interest is focused on the impact of policy on population level health outcomes. Christine has expertise in the analysis of time series data and in the transformation and modelling of big data. Her statistical skills include the development of prediction models using segmented regression and auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models.

In her research with Australian Centre for Cannabinoid Clinical and Research Excellence (ACRE), which has been funded by a multi-institutional NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence, Dr Hallinan is working as a post-doctoral research fellow on the pharmacovigilance of Medicinal Cannabis. This research involves an exploration of the prescription patterns and the reporting of adverse events for patients accessing medicinal cannabis in Australia. Christine is also working on the analysis of primary care electronic medical record data for the University of Melbourne Future Health Today (FHT) and Antimicrobial Stewardship projects.

Christine’s qualifications include a Master of Public Health (MPH) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Melbourne. Dr Hallinan has an MPH major in Health Program and Economic Evaluation. Her PhD involved the analysis of the removal of incentives to general practitioners for immunisation, using multiple modelling proceedures on Australia’s national immunisation data registry. She was awarded a Commonwealth Supported Place in 2009, an Australian Post Graduate Award in 2012 and a Research Training Program Scholarship in 2017. Her breadth of capability includes the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse complex interventions. Christine’s overarching aim is to provide evidence around how best to optimise the quality of care using routinely collected data.

Christine is a member of the ACRE Capacity Building Group.

Current Projects:
• ACRE-Pharmacovigilance of Medicinal Cannabis: Identifying factors that will assist clinicians in the safe and appropriate prescribing of cannabis-based medication.
• Future Health Today: A pilot and feasibility study.
• Future Health Today: A cluster randomised control trial of quality improvement activities in general practice.
• GP NAPS: Exploring the feasibility of passive audit of antibiotic prescribing in general practice
• Antibiotic Stewardship-Developing and validating algorithms to detect people at risk of, or with, chronic kidney disease and their management.
• Antibiotic Stewardship-Shared decision support for patients: An antimicrobial stewardship strategy to promote inappropriate antibiotic use in primary care.
• Evaluating a safety and efficacy of a COVID-19 ‘Drive-Through’ clinic.