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Contact Details

Email
tony.dowell@otago.ac.nz
Position
Professor
Department
Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice (Wellington)
Qualifications
MBChB (Leeds) MRCGP FRCGP
Research summary
Mental Health and general practice

Research

Tony Dowell is Professor of Primary Health Care and Deputy Dean at the University of Otago, Wellington, and a practicing General Practitioner at the Island Bay Medical Centre. Tony's research activities have spanned a wide range of topics relevant to primary care, using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Current research themes include:

Mental health
- Primary mental health service delivery. Recent projects have included an evaluation of mental health initiatives and the development and piloting of a toolkit for primary mental health care.
- The Anti-depressant Cessation Trial (ACT); a randomized controlled trial of SSRI withdrawal for those with stable depression.
- Development and piloting of a problem solving/ cognitive behavioural ultra-brief intervention (UBI) in routine primary care consultations.
- Classification of mental disorder. Tony is a member of a WHO panel exploring classification issues in mental health for the ICD_11 classification of disease.

Communication in health care
Tony is a founding member of the Applied Research on Communication in Health (ARCH) research group. This group consisting of clinicians, social scientists and sociolinguists is undertaking current projects in the content and quality of consultations in diabetes care, the management of overweight patients and interpreted consultations in general practice and primary care settings.

Quality in health care
Tony has been involved for a number of years in the development of indicators of performance in primary care. He is currently a member of panels at the Quality and Safety Commission developing an Atlas of Variation, and indicators for Ambulatory Sensitive Hospitalisation.

Publications

Huang, Q. S., Wood, T., Aminisani, N., Kvalsvig, A., Baker, M. G., Nghiem, N., … Jelley, L., … Geoghegan, J. L., … Dowell, T., … McIntyre, P., … on behalf of the SHIVERS investigation team. (2025). Comparison of the incidence and risk factors of COVID-19 and influenza associated acute respiratory illnesses: Results of the SHIVERS-II, III, IV prospective community cohort study. Journal of Infectious Diseases. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf097 Journal - Research Article

Macklin, N., Wilkinson-Meyers, L., & Dowell, A. (2024). Kindness: Poor cousin or equal kin to compassion and empathy in the healthcare literature? A Scoping Review. BMJ Leader, 8, 293-304. doi: 10.1136/leader-2024-001034 Journal - Research Other

Jelley, L., Douglas, J., O'Neill, M., Berquist, K., Claasen, A., Wang, J., … McIntyre, P., Dowell, T., … Geoghegan, J. L. (2024). Spatial and temporal transmission dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus in New Zealand before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Communications, 15, 9758. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53998-5 Journal - Research Article

Sheridan, N., Hoare, K., Carryer, J., Mills, J., Hewitt, S., Love, T., … and the Primary Care Models Study Group, including Atmore, C., Crampton, P., Dowell, A., Gauld, R., McBain, L., Stokes, T., & Stubbe, M. (2024). Nurses' work in relation to patient health outcomes: An observational study comparing models of primary care. International Journal for Equity in Health, 23, 198. doi: 10.1186/s12939-024-02288-z Journal - Research Article

Dowell, T. (2024, July). Immunisation voices from COVID-19. Verbal presentation at the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) Conference for General Practice, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

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