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Professor of Primary Health Care Department Primary Health Care and General Practice

Background and Interests

Tony Dowell is Professor of Primary Health Care at the University of Otago, Wellington, and a practicing General Practitioner at the Island Bay Medical Centre. He has been a member of the Department since 1997, when he arrived from the UK to take up the inaugural Chair of General Practice and Head of Department. He qualified in Medicine at Leeds University in the UK and after junior medical training worked in Malawi, central Africa. Returning to the UK he completed General Practice training and entered academic practice in Leeds. Prior to moving to New Zealand he was inaugural Director of the Centre for Research in Primary Care at Leeds. His current academic interests include research in mental health care, health services research and communication in health care consultation settings.

Teaching Activities

Undergraduate Medical Education

Teaching in psychological medicine and community practice in 4th – 6th year class settings.

He was one of the founders of a cultural immersion teaching programme which ran for over ten years on the East Coast of the North Island.

Postgraduate Education

Regular contributions to postgraduate programmes in Primary Care, Public Health and Psychological medicine.

He is currently supervising PhD students in the areas of back pain, acute respiratory infection, the acculturation of international medical graduates, sleep disturbance in dementia and professional attitudes to obesity in men.

Research Activities

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

Dowell, A., Bibby, S., Cole, M., Dunlop, A., Hilder, J., Humphrey, G., Karteleva, L., … Sexton, A., Stubbe, M., & Zipfel, P. (2023). Evaluation of the health sector Immunisation Education, Training and Clinical Support programme during the New Zealand COVID-19 pandemic: Methodology and overview. Proceedings of the New Zealand Primary Health Care, General Practice & Rural Health Research Symposium. (pp. 33). Retrieved from https://www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/departments/primaryhealthcaregeneralpractice

Mettelman, R. C., Souquette, A., Van de Velde, L.-A., Vegesana, K., Allen, E. K., Kackos, C. M., … and the SHIVERS-II investigation team, including Nesdale, A., Balm, M., & Dowell, T. (2023). Baseline innate and T cell populations are correlates of protection against symptomatic influenza virus infection independent of serology. Nature Immunology, 24, 1511-1526. doi: 10.1038/s41590-023-01590-2

Asher, I., Turner, N., & Dowell, T. (2023). Ensure all children access the healthcare they need [CPAG policy brief on healthcare access]. (pp. 1-9). Child Poverty Action Group. Retrieved from https://www.cpag.org.nz/policy-briefs/

Sheridan, N., Love, T., Kenealy, T., and the Primary Care Models Study Group, including Atmore, C., Crampton, P., Dowell, A., Gauld, R., McBain, L., Stokes, T., & Stubbe, M. (2023). Is there equity of patient health outcomes across models of general practice in Aotearoa New Zealand? A national cross-sectional study. International Journal for Equity in Health, 22, 79. doi: 10.1186/s12939-023-01893-8

Mathieson, F., Garrett, S., Stubbe, M., Hilder, J., Tester, R., Fedchuk, D., Dunlop, A., & Dowell, A. (2023). Therapist voices on a youth mental health pilot: Responsiveness to diversity and therapy modality. International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health, 20, 1834. doi: 10.3390/ ijerph20031834

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