- Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, UNSW
Dr Emaediong Akpanekpo (MBBS, MPH in Epidemiology) is an epidemiologist specialising in health and justice research. Since completing his PhD in 2025, his work has focused on the intersection of mental illness, reoffending trajectories, and treatment interventions. His methodological expertise includes recurrent event analysis, multi-state models, psychiatric epidemiology, survival analysis, and administrative data linkage.
Dr Akpanekpo co-led the statistical analysis for the ReINVEST RCT, the first trial of sertraline to reduce recidivism in violent offenders. He has led cohort studies published in Schizophrenia Research and Psychiatric Services examining how mental health treatment affects reoffending among justice-involved youth. His population-based cohort study in Australasian Psychiatry provided evidence that incarceration is associated with the onset of new mental disorders in youth with no prior psychiatric history. His BMJ Mental Health study identified increased psychiatric admissions after expiration of justice supervision, and his Journal of Criminal Justice article was the first to use multi-state models to map criminal justice transitions dynamically. His implementation science study in Justice, Opportunities, and Rehabilitation validated youth violence risk predictions across different supervision contexts.
He has published 15+ peer-reviewed articles in journals including Lancet eClinicalMedicine, BMJ Mental Health, Schizophrenia Research, Psychiatric Services, and the Journal of Criminal Justice, leading 10 as first or co-first author. He supervises medical students and Honours and Masters students, and is a peer reviewer for Australasian Psychiatry, General Psychiatry, Trauma, Violence and Abuse, BMC Public Health, and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is a member of the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association.
Experience
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2025–presentPostdoctoral Research Fellow, UNSW Sydney
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2023–2025PhD Candidate, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney
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2021–2023PhD Candidate, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney
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2020–2022Clinical Data Lead, 54Gene
Education
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2025UNSW Sydney, PhD
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2019University of Ghana, Ghana, MPH
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2016University of Uyo, Nigeria, MBBS
Publications
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2025The Impact of Behavioural Nudges on Clinical Trial Retention of Men with a History of Violent Offending, Justice, Opportunities, and Rehabilitation
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2025Examining the Validity of Youth Violence Risk Predictions Across Criminal Justice Supervision Contexts, Journal of Offender Rehabilitation
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2025The Association Between Mental Health Treatment and Reoffending Among Justice-Involved Youth, Psychiatric Services
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2024Criminal justice transitions among adolescents in Australia: A multi-state model, Journal of Criminal Justice
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2024Psychiatric admissions in young people after expiration of criminal justice supervision in Australia: a retrospective data linkage study, BMJ Mental Health
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2023Predicting attrition of men with a history of violence from randomised clinical trials, Trials
Professional Memberships
- Fellow, Royal Society for Public Health
Contact Emaediong for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Website
- Article Feed
- ORCID
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- Joined
