HEALTH AND ECONOMIC BURDEN OF INTERSTITIAL LUNG DISEASES
RESEARCHER PROFILE (Filmed April 2024)
Dr Ingrid Cox
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Menzies Institute for Medical Research
University of Tasmania
Dr Ingrid Cox is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania. She is a physician and health economist by training and has extensive experience working in healthcare, including in clinical practice, public health, health policy and health planning, and has worked with regional governmental agencies in the Caribbean and international development partners working in health.
Dr Cox’s main research interests focus on respiratory diseases and primarily on the economic burden and economic evaluation of interventions and treatments for their management. She earned her PhD from the University of Tasmania where her doctoral research examined the health and economic burden of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in Australia, one component of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for Pulmonary Fibrosis, a national project implemented alongside the Australian IPF Registry and the Lung Foundation Australia. This research provided the first epidemiological profile and first costing estimates of the economic burden of the disease in Australia, providing essential evidence for health service reimbursement policies.
Dr Cos completed her PhD in 2022 and since then has been the recipient of two Fellowships, the first the Menzies Postdoctoral Fellowship and the second a Fellowship with Lung Foundation Australia.
Currently Dr Cox’s research work spans several areas including her continued work on IPF and other interstitial lung diseases on several national projects, health services research including some work with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, prostate cancer research and her current lung cancer research funded by the major project grant of the Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation.
Dr Cox holds executive committee positions on the Australian Health Economics Society, the Professional Society or Health Economics and Outcomes Research both nationally and internationally, is currently the President of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand Tasmanian Branch and Chair of the Lung Cancer Special Interest Group.
Source: Supplied, Centre Of Research Excellence In Pulmonary Fibrosis
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Prescribing exercise to regional population with cardiovascular disease & diabetes
Associate Professor Gordon’s research is aimed at determining the optimal methods of prescribing and implementing exercise as part of the health care plan for people with cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Specifically, he is leading work to determine if and how the components of exercise can be considered as a whole for prescribing exercise to generate health benefits. This is important to overcome the series of barriers that people living in rural and regional areas experience when trying to become active.
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Novel forms of brain stimulation & psychedelic assisted psychotherapy
Professor Paul Fitzgerald is the Head of the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. He is an academic psychiatrist with a MBBS degree, Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD. He has conducted an extensive range of experimental studies and clinical trials, focused on the development of novel treatment options for patients with mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease.
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Neonatal respiratory trials in sick & preterm newborn infants
Prof Brett J. Manley leads and collaborates on large national and international randomised clinical trials in neonatology. He previously collaborated on 4 randomised trials of nasal high-flow as non-invasive respiratory support for preterm and term infants, all of which were published in N Engl J Med. Recently he led the PLUSS trial of intratracheal budesonide for extremely preterm infants, that recruited in 21 NICUs across 4 countries, the results of which were published in JAMA. PLUSS was awarded the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Trial of the Year in 2025. Another passion of his is mentoring and supervising early career researchers to undertake their own clinical trials.
