Associate Professor Debbie Scott

Debbie is the Strategic Lead for the National Addiction and Mental Health Surveillance Unit at Turning Point. She is a public health researcher with a nursing background. Debbie’s research focuses on surveillance methodologies and the use of surveillance data to improve the understanding of the role of alcohol and other drugs in intentional injury, (for example - family violence, child maltreatment and suicide and self-harm) thereby reducing harms associated with their intersections.

Debbie has an international reputation and has collaborated with The World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) on data quality issues and surveillance methodologies. She has presented more than 50 papers, including a number of keynotes, at national and international conferences. Her publications include more than 60 peer review publications, an edited book and a number of book chapters, consultancy reports and submissions and parliamentary submissions, and she has raised more than $10m in funding through government tenders and competitive grants.

Debbie is a Domain Leader for Prevention and Treatment at the Monash Addiction Research Center (MARC), a member of the Monash Alfred Injury Network (MAIN) and an elected member of the Australasian Injury Prevention Network (AIPN) Executive and chairs their SubCommittee on Alcohol and Drug related Injury. She is also an invited member of the Corporal Punishment Working Group Chaired by the Parenting and Family Research Alliance (PAFRA).

Research interests

• Surveillance methodologies and data quality
• Alcohol and drug related harms
• Intentional injury (family violence, child maltreatment and suicide/self-harm)
• The role of alcohol and drug in family violence and child maltreatment

Contact details

You can contact Debbie at [email protected]

More information

You can follow Debbie’s research at Monash University, Google Scholar or via Researchgate