| Ms Tessa Keegel |
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Research Fellow |
| Biography |
An interest in work and health brought Tessa Keegel to the McCaughey Centre. Tessa’s introduction to population health was in 1998 when she worked as a research interviewer with the Australian Breast Cancer Family Study.
This sparked her desire to work in public health research and prompted her to add to her Masters degree in cultural theory with a graduate diploma in epidemiology and biostatistics.
At the time of joining the McCaughey Centre she was a PhD candidate on an NHMRC scholarship. “I thought it would be great to take my skills and use them in ways that were far more applied,” she says. Her first job in epidemiology was at the Occupational Dermatology Research and Education Centre at the Skin and Cancer Foundation, Melbourne. In this position Tessa worked on a range of research projects investigating occupational contact dermatitis across a number of industries. Tessa also worked on the development of policy recommendations regarding occupational dermal exposure.
In 2004 Tessa joined Associate Professor Tony LaMontagne at the University of Melbourne, working with him on the 2006 VicHealth report, ‘Workplace Stress in Victoria: Developing a Systems Approach’.
Tessa is continuing research on the health effects of exposure to an adverse psychosocial work environment with Associate Professor LaMontagne, who is Principal Research Officer at the McCaughey Centre.
Tessa raises the question of whether being employed could, in some situations, be more damaging to mental health than being unemployed.
“Australia is going through an economic boom at the moment, unemployment is low and one of the questions we need to consider is whether having any job at any cost is better than having no job at all,” she says. “There may be jobs that, because of conditions, may be worse for health than being unemployed.
“Particularly with the industrial relations changes that have come through recently, the expectation that people will have safe and secure work which is good for their health does not hold,” she says.
“I think it’s really important to be tracking the health effects of what is happening in workplaces.”
Tessa is interested in the ways that policy can affect the relationship between work and health.
Tessa Keegel has worked as a researcher in work and health, as an epidemiologist, and as a research interviewer. Most of her experience has been gained in universities or public health organisations.
For more information including Tessa’s qualifications, publications, research grants and classifications, visit Find an Expert.