Susan Morton

Associate Professor
BSc(Hons), Dip Teaching, MBChB, PhD, FAFPHM

Key research interests

• Life-course epidemiology
• Maternal and child health and well-being
• Translational research (policy relevant)

Susan is an epidemiologist and specialist in public health medicine. She currently holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor the School of Population Health and the Liggins Institute and is currently the Director of a new longitudinal study of NZ children and families (Growing Up in New Zealand). She brings a mix of skills to these roles, having initially utilized her honours degree in pure mathematics to train and teach as a secondary school mathematics teacher. After switching careers and undertaking her medical training in Auckland she began training in paediatrics as a registrar in the late 1990s before traveling to London to pursue a PhD in epidemiology and specializing in Public Health Medicine.

Susan’s main research interests are in translational research which aims to provide a robust and relevant inter-disciplinary evidence base to inform inter-sectoral public policy related to improving the health of the population.

She also enjoys teaching medical students and is part of a group of clinicians who are increasing the population health presence in the undergraduate medical curriculum.

Additionally she is very keen to share knowledge gained from robust scientific research with the community.

1. Shulruf B, Morton SMB, Goodyear-Smith F, O'Loughlin C, Dixon R . Designing Multidisciplinary Longitudinal Studies of Human Development Analyzing Past Research to Inform Methodology. Evaluation & the Health Professions 2007; 30(3): 207-228.

2. Lawlor DA, Morton SMB, Batty GD, Macintyre SM, Clark H, Davey Smith G. Obstetrician assessed maternal health at pregnancy predicts offspring future health. 2007. PLoS ONE 2(8): e666. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000666

3. De Stavola BL, Nitsch D, Silva I, McCormack V, Hardy R, Mann V, Cole TJ, Morton S, Leon DA. Statistical Issues in Life Course Epidemiology. American Journal of Epidemiology 2006: 163 (1): 84 -96.

4. Batty GD, Morton SMB, Campbell D, Clark H, Davey Smith G, Hall M, Macintyre S, Leon DA. The Aberdeen ‘Children of the 1950s’ cohort study: Background, methods, and follow-up information on a new resource for the study of life-course and intergenerational effects on health Paediatric & Perinatal Epidemiology 2004; 18: 221-239.

5. Morton SMB. Invited Commentary: The child is the mother of the woman: intergenerational associations in maternal anthropometry for International Journal of Epidemiology 2004: 33; 1249-51