Martin J Downes

PeerJ Author & Reviewer

Summary

Martin has been in health research since 2006 and has been proactive in creating and completing projects in health research including: prevalence and interactions of pet ownership with general population health and asthma sufferers; the prevalence of and factors associated with suicidal ideation in the veterinary profession and evidence based research in therapy of mental illness.

Martin has experience in Evidence Based Medicine and health technology assessment. He has worked on a number of research projects including a Cochrane systematic review examining animal assisted therapy in mentally ill patients, a systematic review looking at methods used for the estimation of pet ownership and developing a critical appraisal tool for examining cross sectional studies. Martin is involved in evaluation of industry submissions of new technologies for listing on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medical Benefits Scheme and developing submissions and evaluations for the Medical Services Advisory Committee.

Martin has also extensive epidemiological and statistical experience working and providing support on numerous projects. Martin completed a PhD in epidemiology in University College Dublin and worked in Mount Sinai School of Medicine on data from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate environmental control patterns among asthmatics. Martin has also worked in collaboration with Cornell University and Lund University on bladder cancer projects.

Diabetes & Endocrinology Epidemiology Evidence Based Medicine Health Policy Public Health Statistics Veterinary Medicine

Past or current institution affiliations

Griffith University

Work details

Associate Professor

Griffith University

February 2014

Centre for Applied Health Economics

Dr Martin Downes is an Associate Professor in Health Technology Assessment at Griffith University, Queensland and has considerable experience in, epidemiology, evidence-based medicine and health economics. Dr. Downes leads the consultancy team for the Centre of Applied Health Economics in Griffith University. This a large team of 11 researchers (1 senior research fellow, 3 research fellows and 7 research assistants) that work on major consultancy projects for the federal and state Departments of Health. These consultancy projects include evaluation of major submissions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), contracted assessments and submissions for the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC), Post Market Reviews for the PBAC and evaluation for the My Health Record.