ProfessorRachel Skinner

Professor Rachel Skinner is a teaching and research clinical academic in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, Sydney University, and Adolescent Physician at the Children’s Hospital Westmead.

She is Deputy Director of Wellbeing, Health and Youth, NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Adolescent Health: a collaboration across 5 Universities, based at Sydney University.

She is also Senior Clinical Advisor in Youth Health and Wellbeing at NSW Ministry of Health.

Professor Skinner's research addresses a broad range of public health, bio-psychosocial, behavioural and ethical aspects of adolescent health. Her approach is inter-disciplinary, and focussed on translation of findings into real world interventions with clear impact on health outcomes. She is known internationally for her work on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine efficacy, effectiveness and school vaccination programs; and for work on sexual behaviour, contraception and early pregnancy in adolescents.

Her methodological approach includes prospective cohort studies, population based cross-sectional studies, complex intervention and program evaluation, qualitative inquiry and clinical trials. She works in a range of settings, including schools, health services and social media. She has developed, using formative work, complex, innovative, multi-faceted interventions for health promotion of young people, and developed and validated the measures to capture impact on outcomes.

Her work involves participation of young people at each stage of the research process. She is highly experienced at recruitment and retention of adolescent participants and in the ethical aspects of conducting sensitive research with this age group, in the constraints of the school setting.