Anne Kavanagh

Anne Kavanagh is an Australian epidemiologist and professor at the University of Melbourne. Her research specialises in inequalities in health across different types of social determinants including gender, disability, the built environment, socioeconomic situations, as well as other factors such as housing and employment. Education and career Kavanagh graduated from Flinders University with an MBBS, and then subsequently obtained a PhD from ANU in 1995.

She is a professor of Disability and Health at the University of Melbourne, at the school of population and global health.

Kavanagh's passion for her career and medical research is led by her personal journey, with a child with autism, as well as intellectual disability. She was also later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.When my eldest child was diagnosed with Autism and an intellectual disability, I learned first-hand how people with disabilities and their families experienced poorer health outcomes because they were often marginalised from society. Kavanagh also regularly works in science communications, and publishes her research in The Conversation, including work around the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and impacts of funding cuts to the NDIS on families, particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. She has also published work on impacts of Covid lockdowns and vaccinations on the general population.

Publications Kavanagh has authored a suite of journal articles, over 300 as at June 2024, and has an H index of 62. She was on the editorial board of Disability & Society in 2021. She was also the associate editor of the journal Social Science & Medicine for the years 2008 to 2014. AM Kavanagh, DH Broom (1998) Embodied risk: my body, myself?. Social science & medicine 46 (3), 437-444 AM Kavanagh, JL Goller, T King, D Jolley, D Crawford, G Turrell (2005) Urban area disadvantage and physical activity: a multilevel study in Melbourne, Australia. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 59 (11), 934–940.

Awards and recognition

2024 – Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), King's Birthday Honours 2022 – Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) 2020 – Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship, University of Melbourne. 2018 – Leadership Award, University of Melbourne.