Professor Andrew Mackinnon

Andrew Mackinnon is a professorial fellow in the Centre for Youth Mental Health at The University of Melbourne and heads the Statistics Unit at Orygen Youth Health Research Centre.

He has been involved in a range of epidemiological surveys exploring mental health, wellbeing, and cognitive functioning across the life span.  These projects have involved both the general community as well as special groups such as older individuals and children with cognitive or physical disabilities. A major upcoming project is the Study of High Impact Psychosis. This project, funded by the Australian Federal Government, will comprehensively document the psychological, physical and social status of Australians living with psychosis.

Andrew has broad experience in the design, conduct and analysis of trials in psychiatry.  These have studied a broad range of interventions from pharmaceuticals, psychotherapy to behavioural and life-style modification, matched by modes of delivery ranging from traditional, individual face-to-face approaches to distal and Internet delivered therapies. Target groups have ranged from persons with severe refractory illness to universal preventive trials. 

His methodological skills have developed in response to the needs of these projects.  He has a strong background in measurement in psychiatry including factor analysis, psychometrics, diagnostic and screening tests and procedures. Much of his work focuses on the analysis of trials and longitudinal data using structural equation modelling and mixed models.

His statistical work in this area has led to an interest in the role and perceptions of participants in trials and how these might be understood and harnessed to generate better outcomes from trials.