Rosana Pacella
Professor of Global Health at Greenwich University
Biosketch
I am Professor of Global Health and Associate Dean Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Faculty of Education Health and Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich. I have been the Director of the Institute for Lifecourse Development (ILD) since its launch in 2019. The ILD is a key anchor resource where professionals from many different fields work closely together with researchers and stakeholders from public, charitable and voluntary organisations to develop effective and economically sustainable lifecourse solutions for some of the grand challenges facing society.
I have extensive high-level experience in quantitative analysis and am skilled at managing a diverse portfolio of research and engaging with multiple stakeholders. I managed faculty preparations for the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) submission and for UoA3 Allied Health, Nursing and Pharmacy, based on our overall grade point average (GPA), our THE rankings position in the sector has increased by 22 places since REF 2014 and all aspects of the ILD research environment were judged to be of world-leading or internationally excellent quality in REF2021.
Previously, I was Head of Research at the University of Chichester where I led in developing and implementing the University’s Research Strategy. I also hold an Adjunct Professor appointment at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). While at QUT, I established and led a health services research team conducting economic evaluations of evidence-based wound management innovations. I was awarded the QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Performance Individual Award for the impact of this research on policy and practice. Methodological interests include burden of disease analysis and comparative risk assessment, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, economic modelling and cost-effectiveness analysis and how decision makers value health care costs and weight economic evidence. I am an internationally recognized expert in assessing national and global burden of disease, with an emphasis on mental health disorders and interpersonal violence related risk factors including child maltreatment, bullying and intimate partner violence. Recent work has contributed to international knowledge by leading and designing the first studies to quantify the burden attributable to multiple forms of child maltreatment and bullying in Australia and interpersonal violence in South Africa. I am an expert advisor on the Global Burden of Disease Collaboration, and the Australian and South African national burden of disease studies.
I was the principal investigator on the £1.3 (AUD2.3) million NHMRC project to conduct the first Australian Child Maltreatment Study 2019-23, before moving to the UK and remain an investigator on this study. I have played an important role internationally, in building capacity in burden of disease assessments among researchers who are employed or contracted by governments. More recently I have expanded my interests to training clinicians and researchers in cost-effectiveness methods. I have published in high-profile journals including the Lancet, PLOS Med, and Child Abuse & Neglect. I have been awarded £2.1 million in research funding since 2014 from nationally competitive schemes. I obtained my PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993 and have supervised 5 PhD students to completion.
