Nigel is public health and health services researcher with interests and expertise in quantitative research methods, epidemiology, evidence-based health care, clinical trials, and digital health. He is a member of the Improving health outcomes after musculoskeletal injury group at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre, and is a chief investigator of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Better Outcomes for Compensable Injury. His work focusses on the epidemiology and burden of minor to moderate injuries, longitudinal data analyses of intervention trial data, population studies of health-related quality of life and chronic pain, and the potential of digital heath for assessment and intervention following injury.
Nigel has particular interests in new innovations in healthcare, and has previously worked in minimally-invasive surgical trials in gynaecology, and clinical trials assessing the feasibility, efficacy and effectiveness of clinical telemedicine in paediatric healthcare. His doctorate work (Awarded 2011, UQ School of Medicine) involved the design, development, and clinical/cost/acceptability evaluation of real-time telemedicine for acute consultation between a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit and four peripheral referring hospitals in Queensland. He maintains an active research interest in telemedicine, and more broadly in digital health. Between 2004 and 2015, Nigel was involved in the telepaediatric service at the Royal Children's, and the Lady Cilento Children's hospitals in Brisbane where he also co-ordinated an Indigenous Ear Health Screening Program. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare and an academic editor for PLOS ONE.
Nigel regularly participates in national and international grant review panels, and is an active HDR and occupational-trainee supervisor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH), a member of the Australian Epidemiological Association (AEA), International Epidemiological Association (IEA), the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (AIMOS), and is a qualified Justice of the Peace, JP (qual).
I am an early career researcher with <3 years post-PhD and estimated research time relative to opportunity of 20 months. Currently, I am a Research Fellow and Lecturer at The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Centre for Online Health (COH). I have years of study and work experience, including consumer and community involvement, in various healthcare settings in Brazil (2009-2019), the UK (2003-2008) and Australia (2019-present). I came to Australia in December 2019 for a 12-month PhD research placement at UQ after winning a highly competitive scholarship from the Brazilian Government. I have a Bachelor of Pharmacy, a Graduate Certificate in Project Management, a Master of Philosophy in Public Health, a Diploma of Higher Education in Youth and Community Studies and an OCN Level 3 Certificate in Community Development. I completed my PhD in Public Health in 2021.
I have a proven track record for delivering high-quality projects, with national significance, including policy change and integration into the national strategy in Brazil, and the implementation of a digital model of care developed in Australia. My track record demonstrates a rising career trajectory. My research interests are telehealth, virtual care and digital health, including digitally disrupted models of care for chronic conditions, trust and confidence in telehealth and digital health, digital health literacy, health services research, including implementation and evaluation strategies, mixed-methods, cross-sectional studies, co-design and qualitative inquiry, community and consumer involvement in research and service redesign.
Wubshet is a registered pharmacist, lecturer, and course coordinator in Medicines Management and Pharmacy Practice at the University of Queensland’s Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences. He also holds an Affiliate Research Fellow position at the University of Sydney School of Pharmacy.
He completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania, focusing on ‘Medication appropriateness and regimen complexity in chronic kidney disease’ in December 2019. Following that, he held postdoctoral researcher roles at the University of Canberra and University of Sydney, where he coordinated multiple government- and industry-funded clinical trials.
Wubshet's research primarily centres around understanding medication and patient outcomes in individuals with chronic diseases, with a special emphasis on kidney diseases. In collaboration with several researchers and stakeholders in Australia, Wubshet has attracted ~2.1 million in grant funding. Currently, he is actively involved as an investigator in a large-scale cluster randomised trial (ACTRN12622000329763) funded by the Medical Research Future Fund and led by the University of Sydney. This trial aims to investigate the effectiveness of a community pharmacy-led point-of-care screening in improving the detection of kidney disease and quality use of medicines.
