Kelsey Hegarty is Associate Professor and leads the Abuse and Violence research program in the Primary Care Research Unit, Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne.
During the last decade Kelsey has contributed at both national and international levels to the intimate partner violence field. She has developed a program of research in family violence, which commenced with her thesis.
For this, she developed a new measure of domestic violence the Composite Abuse Scale, which is the first validated multidimensional measure of partner abuse and is available in 6 languages. It is currently being used by researchers from Canada, United States of America, Russia, Spain, Japan, Malaysia, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
It was published in the Centres for Disease Control Compendium of intimate partner violence measures in 2006. The program of research is in three areas – definition and prevalence of family violence; mental and physical health consequences of family violence and thirdly, screening for and responding to family violence in health care settings.
She currently leads the first large domestic violence screening and intervention trial (weave) in general practice in the world with long term outcome results available in 2012. She is also Chief Investigator on a longitudinal study of depression and partner abuse in primary care (diamond). In recognition of this expertise, she is an investigator on a Canadian Institute of Health Research centre research development grant, which meets biannually to discuss Gender, Violence and Mental Health across the Lifecycle.
She has co-edited a book on “Intimate partner abuse for health professionals” and is on two Cochrane systematic reviews of screening and advocacy interventions for domestic violence. She played a significant role in the development of the international guidelines on clinician management of all family members (available on the Royal Australian College of General Practice website).
She has developed an innovative domestic violence curriculum for general practitioners and she regularly teaches domestic violence and mental health issues to undergraduates and postgraduate medical and nursing practitioners.
She is currently chair of the management committee of the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria. She is also Equity and Staff Development coordinator and Director of the Postgraduate Primary Care Nursing Course in the Department of General Practice. She works in general practice 2 sessions per week.
Associate Professor Hegarty will be working with Professor Gene Feder, Professor of Primary Care, School of Social and Community Medicine, on the development of domestic violence interventions for families attending primary care.
Associate Professor Hegarty will present the following lectures as part of her Benjamin Meaker Professorship:
1) Research Student Lecture: Ethical and methodological challenges researching sensitive issues: Examples from the Abuse and Violence program at The University of Melbourne, Australia, Wed, 15 June, 2pm - 4pm, Room 7G1, 7 Priory Road, School for Policy Studies
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ias/diary/2011/109.html
2) Faculty Lecture: Domestic violence: The hidden epidemic, Thu, 23 June, 4pm - 5pm, LG.08, Canynge Hall, School of Social and Community Medicine
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ias/diary/2011/110.html
For more information on Associate Professor Hegarty's visit, please contact Professor Feder.
