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R M CullenMD MSc MFM BA DipStats DipProfEthics
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archived
It's not all here yet, but this page will contain summaries of, and links to, areas of my research which are no longer active.
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maori educationCo-authored with Peter Caccioppoli and published in 2005 this book looked at Maori education in the public schooling system, that is from ages 5-16 |
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maori healthCo-authored with Peter Caccioppoli and published in 2004 |
Pertussis in New Zealand
In the middle and late 1990s Dr Wayne Walker from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Auckland and I colloborated to produce a number of articles on the mathematical modelling of the effect of mass vaccination on the occurence of childhood infectious diseases.
One, on models of measles endemicity, was published in Non-Linear Analysis
However, the more important (from my point of view) found a home in New Zealand Family Physician. Of these, the most important made the simple observation from hospital discharge data that the incidence of pertussis in the most vulnerable age group (the under ones) had increased in New Zealand since mass vaccination of children was introduced.
After the paper had been accepted for publication I presented the results to a small group of public health professionals. To my great surprise the Ministry of Health then made strenuous attempts to prevent the paper being published!
The findings were pretty obvious though and were confirmed by subsequent researchers. Our conclusion that a combination of a modest vaccination rate plus waning vaccine induced immunity were the cause is also now accepted. Parents who had been vaccinated as children had lost their immunity and were now able to infect their babies.
Incredibly, with rising incidence rates, the Ministry of Health replaced a moderately effective vaccine with a less effective but cheaper one (with fewer side effects) and pertussis is now endemic in New Zealand.
sexual contact in the professional relationship
In the late 1990s I had a single author paper on sex in the doctor-patient relationship published in the Journal of Medical Ethics
At much the same time I led a small team which completed a census of New Zealand physiotherapists asking for their attitudes to various scenarios of sexual contact in the professional relationship.
The methodology has been used elsewhere since, but our response rate of around 95% in a large group has never been bettered.
managing quality in family medical practices
For 10-15 years since 1985 I wrote, and published in peer reviewed journals, a number of papers introducing quantitative techniques (such as conjoint analysis) to the management of quality in family medicine. This work formed the basis of my MD thesis.
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