Dr Kate Halton

Full description

Dr Kate Halton is a senior research fellow at AusHSI. Kate’s expertise is in health economics and epidemiology, particularly as it relates to infectious diseases. She regularly leads AusHSI training courses, supervises and mentors PhD students, and lectures in Health Economics. Her work is distinguished by strong partnerships with health professionals, an international focus, and a commitment to translation and dissemination of findings.

Prior to joining AusHSI, Kate worked with the Queensland Health Centre for Healthcare Related Infection Surveillance and Prevention (CHRISP). In this role, she worked with a team to develop infection-control guidelines and supported development of efficient infection-control strategies in Queensland public hospitals. She was awarded the Queensland University of Technology Outstanding Doctoral Thesis award in 2009 for her research, which explored the challenges and benefits of using an economic decision-making framework to develop efficient hospital infection-control policy, with a specific focus on cost-effective ways of reducing catheter-related blood stream infections.

Kate’s focus motivates her to produce robust estimates of the economic burden of disease; identify cost-effective ways of preventing, managing or treating health conditions; and support the use of economic evidence for improved healthcare planning. Most recently she worked on a successful project to manage the reduction of antibiotic prescriptions by GPs in Queensland. As chief investigator, her research projects have attracted funding of over $8,500,000.