Kate Mason

Kate Mason is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Health Policy at The University of Melbourne.

She has broad research interests in social and geographical health inequalities, and uses quantitative methods to understand how individual, social, environmental and structural factors combine to influence physical and mental health. Kate is based in the Healthy Housing Unit where her research examines the roles of housing (especially unaffordable and insecure housing) and wider contextual factors in influencing health and generating health inequalities. She was previously a University of Melbourne McKenzie Fellow and currently holds an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to undertake research on residential determinants of sleep health inequalities.

Kate completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, focussing on how neighbourhood built environments influence obesity-related outcomes in the UK, examining in particular how this might vary for different people and in different places. She then undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Liverpool, examining the impact of austerity-related cuts to local services on health inequalities, particularly among children. Kate is also currently also involved in projects estimating the global burden of unhealthy housing, evaluating effects of social policies using natural experimental methods, and generating evidence to inform policy solutions to improve health equity for Australians living with disability.