Academy Fellow

Stephen R. Zubrick, B.Sc (summa cum laude), M.Sc. (Speech and Hearing Science), AM (Psychology), PhD (Psychology) holds an Emeritus professorial appointment at the University of Western Australia a is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. He holds a Senior Advisor at the Telethon Kids Institute where he is an Emeritus Fellow. His training is unusual for its developmental breadth (audiology, speech pathology, clinical psychology and neuropsychology), and his experience in designing and executing large population studies has delivered some of the first, and most comprehensive, findings on the social and ecological contexts in which child development and growth take place. He is recognised as an expert and leader in the study of Australian families and their children.

His research focuses on population studies of Australian child and family development. His work pioneered survey methodologies that delivered the first comprehensive epidemiological estimates of child and adolescent mental illness and the association that this has with their health, education, and social circumstances. Working with his team he demonstrated that it was possible to engage and recruit, with high participation rates, families and their children who were willing to undergo intensive interviews capable of producing reliable and valid estimates of the mental health and health burden of family members. His early work formed the foundations for Australia’s subsequent investments in, and his contributions to, the National Mental Health Surveys of Children and Youth conducted in 1998 and then again in 2014. Starting in 1998 and over a ten year period Professor Zubrick lead his team of chief investigators in the conduct of the seminal Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey. A fully representative random sample of one-in-six West Australian families with Aboriginal children, across the state, was recruited and extensively interviewed to produce an unparalleled evidence base used by State and Federal governments to guide policy and services in health and mental health, education, and community and social services.

Since then Stephen has been instrumental in participating in the development and leadership of Australia’s key longitudinal studies of Australian Indigenous (“Footprints in Time”) and non-Indigenous (“Growing up in Australia) children. His current developmental focus includes early child language development and its impact on subsequent academic and social adjustment, studies using population administrative data linkage, and Indigenous pathways toward and away from involvement with police, courts, and prisons. He is the former Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Lifecourse and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. In 2011 he was honoured as a Citizen of Western Australia for his contributions to children and families.

Emeritus Professor, University of Western Australia

Senior Honorary Research Fellow, Telethon Kids Institute, Head

Fellow, Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences

Member, American Psychological Association

Cit. WA

1. Zubrick, S. R., Hafecost, J., Johnson, S., Lawrence, D., Saw, S., Sawyer, M., Buckingham, B. (2016). Suicidal behaviours: Prevalence estimates from the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. doi:10.1177/0004867415622563
2. Christensen, D., Taylor, C. L., & Zubrick, S. R. (2017). Patterns of multiple risk exposures for low receptive vocabulary growth 4-8 years in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Plos One. doi:dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168804
3. Zubrick, S. R., Taylor, C. L., & Christensen, D. (2015). Patterns and predictors of language and literacy abilities 4-10 years in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Plos One, 10(9: e0135612). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0135612.
4. Zubrick, S.R., Hafekost, J., Johnson, S.E., Sawyer, M.G., Patton, G., Lawrence, D. (2017). The continuity and duration of depression and its relationship to non-suicidal self-harm and suicidal ideation and behavior in adolescents 12–17. Journal of Affective Disorders, 220, 49-56.
5. Zubrick SR. (2016) Longitudinal research: Applications for the design, conduct and dissemination of early childhood research. In: Farrell AK, Kagan SL and Tisdall K (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Research. London: Sage Publications, 201-222.