Water, wastewater, vaccines and priority populations: Field epidemiology in Victoria, Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021-2022)

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates my fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology (MAE) program at the Australian National University. My MAE placement was with the State Government of Victoria's Department of Health from February 2021 to December 2022. Chapter one describes a test of the utility of interrupted time series segmented regression analysis for detecting point-source and continuous-source waterborne disease outbreaks. Building on from chapter one, chapter two details the deployment of a syndromic surveillance system for monitoring and evaluating the public health impacts of drinking water contamination events using data from public hospital emergency departments. The third chapter describes an estimation of the accuracy of wastewater surveillance for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 infected people. Chapter four details an investigation of a COVID-19 outbreak at a residential aged-care facility, while chapter five comprises a mixed-methods systematic review on the COVID-19 vaccine attitudes of racial and ethnic minorities. The sixth and final chapter includes a portfolio of my teaching commitments and other public health activities, including an FAQ on monkeypox following the outbreak in May 2022. I present each chapter with a reflective discussion of my role, my lessons learnt, and the projects' public health impacts.