Yonas Tefera

Dr Yonas Tefera is a Research Fellow in psychiatric epidemiology at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR), University of Queensland. He specialises in leveraging epidemiological methods and conducting advanced analyses of large-scale population-level administrative datasets related to hospital admissions and primary care. As an epidemiologist, his expertise spans pharmacoepidemiology and health services research. In his current work, he leads linked data analysis of health service data, including hospital, emergency department, community mental health services, and public dental care for people living with mental illness. In addition to health service use, his linked data alnalyses include outcomes for individuals engaged with mental health tribunals and placed on treatment orders. Dr Tefera's interests encompass psychiatric epidemiology, psychopharmacology, pharmacoepidemiology, and the use of advanced statistical and machine learning approaches to understand and enhance care for individuals living with mental illness or substance use problems.

He completed his PhD at Monash University in late 2025, focusing on opioid and psychotropic medicine use among injured Australian workers with back and neck musculoskeletal disorders. His work examined high-risk medicine use patterns, such as initiation, persistence, and co-prescribing of opioids and psychotropics, as well as their impacts on work-related outcomes in this population. His research has improved the understanding of value-based healthcare in Australian workers' compensation schemes. Dr Tefera possesses substantial expertise in diverse clinical research methodologies, robust evidence synthesis, and quantitative data analysis, including causal inference techniques. His experience includes survey-based studies, analysis of multinational surveys, international aggregate datasets, and linked administrative and claims data, as well as injury compensation datasets.

Before undertaking his PhD, Dr Tefera trained as a clinical pharmacist and worked as a lecturer, clinical preceptor, and mentor at the University of Gondar in Ethiopia, teaching courses such as pharmacotherapy, drug informatics, evidence-based medicine, and pharmacoepidemiology. He earned a Master of Public Health with distinction from the University of Manchester and a Master of Science in Clinical Pharmacy from the University of Gondar. His academic excellence has been recognised with several honours, including the Outstanding Student Cup Award from the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Association and the first-place award for achieving the highest score in his graduating class at the University of Gondar. Additionally, he has received multiple travel grants to present his research at national and international conferences, such as the International Pharmaceutical Federation's World Pharmaceutical Congress and the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology's Asian Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology.