Dr Rafat Hussain is an Associate Professor in Health Management and Deputy Head of the School of Rural Medicine at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. ^[1]

[edit] Early Life

Rafat Hussain was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She studied at the Mama Parsi School and St. Joseph’s College, Karachi. In 1977 she joined the Dow University of Health Sciences from where she obtained the MBBS degree in 1984. She completed her internship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Medicine from the Civil Hospital, Karachi.

[edit] Career

From 1987 to 1993 she worked as an academic at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, where she was actively involved in teaching, clinical care and establishment of primary health care programs. ^[2] In 1989 she received a scholarship to study for a Masters in Public Health (with a focus on Maternal and Child Health) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

She was Principal Investigator during 1992-93 on a project ‘Community Perceptions and Management of Acute Respiratory Infections in Urban Slums of Karachi’, funded by Harvard Institute of International Development, USA.

She was also Co-Investigator from 1990-93 on a project ‘Pregnancy Outcome & Child Survival Study’. This was a four-year longitudinal study to assess the prevalence of low birth weight; and child growth and development including the effects of under-nutrition). Funded by the National Institutes of Health (Division of Reproductive Epidemiology), USA.

In 1993 she obtained a scholarship to undertake her PhD in Epidemiology & Population Health from the Australian National University which she completed in 1998.

She was Principal Investigator during 1995-97 on the project ‘The Role of Inbreeding as a Determinant of Pregnancy Outcome and Child Survival in Pakistan ’. This was funded by the Health Transition Centre and National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University.

Dr Hussain has also worked as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Health and Nutrition at University of Wollongong and as a Visiting Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health.

Her research interests include reproductive and sexual health, women's health, health promotion, population genetics, developmental disabilities and health services research. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed international journals. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

[edit] References