Dr Emily Steele

Biography/ Background

Emily Steele is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Life Course and Intergenerational Health Research Group at The University of Adelaide. Emily's doctoral training was undertaken in the areas of social and life course epidemiology. Her PhD, awarded in July 2010, investigated the influence of economic uncertainty throughout early adulthood, on age at first childbirth. The project was developed to quantify structural influences on older first childbirth, and focussed specifically on the role of precarious employment conditions, delayed home ownership, and higher education debt.

For her PhD, Emily led the design and conduct of a cross-sectional retrospective survey based on a cohort of around 1000 women; this included development of calendar survey instruments, training and management of an interviewer team, and quality control of fieldwork and data entry. She developed an analytical framework that applied survival analysis techniques to cumulative and critical period life course approaches, and preliminary analyses were conducted to investigate the impact of precarious employment on age at first childbirth (n = 230).

Emily's thesis can be accessed at http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/64193

Emily's postdoctoral work focuses on extending her PhD to explore the impact of various aspects of economic uncertainty on reproductive behaviour.

Disciplinary Orientation

Social and life course epidemiology

Qualifications

BAppSc(Physio.), MPH, PhD

Research Interests

• The influence of social and economic factors on reproductive behaviour, and, more broadly, on women's health and well-being
• Life course epidemiology, in particular:
  • Collection of high quality retrospective life course data (including use of Event History Calendar instruments)
  • Development of conceptual models and analytical frameworks
• Use of social theory to guide epidemiological work
  

Entry last updated: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011