Professor Anne Kavanagh OAM
BMBS ’87, PhD (ANU) ’95
By Kate Holland
Not everyone is crystal clear on their vocation at a young age. For Professor Anne Kavanagh OAM it came relatively early, in her fourth year at Flinders. Nearly 40 years later, motivated by lived experience, she’s using that calling to improve the health of people with a disability.
Born in England to Irish parents, Professor Kavanagh refers to herself as an Irish-Australian. Her dad had left school at the age of 13 – because the teachers went on a year-long strike! At 15, he joined the British Merchant Navy and came to Australia many times. He fell in love with it, seeing it as the land of opportunity and the place where his children could get the education he missed out on.
Professor Kavanagh arrived in Adelaide as a ‘ten-pound pom’ at the age of four. Her dad had a job lined up and soon after they bought their first home in St Marys, where Professor Kavanagh says she had a wonderful childhood. She may not have loved school, but she loved learning and made the most of the opportunities that both her parents were denied. Her mum left school at 16 and never realised her dream to be a teacher, always thinking she was ‘less than’ as a result. That was far from the truth.
“Mum was a guiding light in my life; her wit, intelligence and integrity were unsurpassed, yet she didn’t see it in herself. She died two years ago, and I miss her every moment of every day. When I face difficult things, I imagine my mum and ask, ‘what would Carmie do?’. What is the ethical and honourable thing to do in this situation?” says Professor Kavanagh.
Going into medicine wasn’t a given for Professor Kavanagh. She liked lots of things and originally thought of studying maths. Then her maths teacher suggested medicine. She went to Flinders straight from school and has been working in medicine ever since. A total of 37 years, 34 of them in public health.
Big Picture Thinking
She admits she spent a bit too much time in the tavern during the early years at uni and found the pre-clinical years hard.
“I’m best at big picture thinking, bringing threads together and trying to see things from multiple perspectives. The clinical years aligned better with my skills and what we were learning,” she says.
“I discovered research while doing my elective in fourth year. I had a blast and thrived with the late Dr Jill Need and Professor Michael Ross as my supervisors. The elective introduced me to new methods and perspectives from the social sciences. I was able quantify stuff and discovered the beauty of epidemiology – a profession that was made for me. Without that experience, I wouldn’t be doing what I am today.”
Having graduated, Professor Kavanagh started as a cancer epidemiologist but that didn’t satisfy her passion for social justice. She turned to social epidemiology and health inequalities research. In the last 15 years or so, her research has focussed on the health of people with disabilities, research that’s informed and enriched by her own experience and that of her son.
“After having a range of perplexing health problems over decades, which no one could quite put their finger on, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011,” she says.
“I have also had a fair share of mental health problems over the years. My son Declan, now 21 years old, is autistic and has an intellectual disability.
“When Declan was at school, I saw the discrimination and disadvantage that many children and adults with disability and their families faced every moment of every day. When I was diagnosed with MS, I could see how my own privilege helped me get the supports I needed to continue to work and contribute – I was aware that many others with a diagnosis like mine became marginalised socially and economically.
“I didn’t see any Australian epidemiologists and few academics internationally looking at the social determinants of health for people with disability. It was just assumed disabled people’s poorer health, relative to people without disability, was due to underlying health conditions. My research shows that it is far more complicated.
“Medical conditions do play a part but discrimination, socioeconomic disadvantage and limited access to quality health care also play a big part. It is only in recent years people with disability have been included as a population group worthy of attention, alongside other groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, migrants and refugees, LGBTQI+ Australians and women. The narrative is changing but too slowly. As an epidemiologist I have been able to put numbers around this and show that things don’t need to stay the way they are.”
Such is Professor Kavanagh’s contribution that in 2018 she was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and in 2019 she was awarded the Convocation Medal for outstanding leadership and the advancement of research and knowledge on health inequities, particularly the health of people with disabilities.
“Being awarded the Convocation was such an enormous privilege. My dad died just a few weeks before the ceremony, but he knew about it,” Professor Kavanagh says.
Order of Australia
Professor Kavanagh received an Order of Australia for service to medicine and disability research in 2024. Among her other achievements, she has a PhD, spent time at Harvard School of Public Health learning from some of the world’s best public health thinkers and was this year awarded Lifetime Membership for service to epidemiology and the association by the Australian Epidemiological Association. She is also Chair of Disability and Health at the University of Melbourne and on the inaugural board of the National Disability Research Partnership.
Not bad for someone who has the daily juggle of her own health along with her commitments as the parent of a son with a significant disability. That juggle is also motivation. Professor Kavanagh spent years advocating for the National Disability Research Partnership. Now it’s an independent entity, and her vision to see disability research funded and commitment to building capacity is being realised.
Professor Kavanagh concedes the world of medicine is changing and that she worries the big debt students now
leave with is steering some away from general practice and public health.
“With a shift to individualised medicine, public health has kind of been forgotten. In another 50 years, I think it will be central. With climate change causing population wide impacts – from pandemics to natural disasters – individual solutions won’t protect people. We need to think about mitigation at a population level,” Professor Kavanagh says.
Future Planning
“As for disability, we are an ageing population and living longer. The prevalence of disability will rise. We need to plan for that now. Solutions like robots, already being used in some countries for both practical and social reasons, might come in. We need to ask ourselves as a society how we want to use them and what are the risks,” Professor Kavanagh notes.
And for those planning to become doctors, Professor Kavanagh says relax, experience and be curious. Look outward, beyond the textbooks, hospital or clinic.
“You can’t be a good doctor without understanding people and the world. Open your mind to different career paths. Don’t make decisions based on how much you can earn, make them on what you are committed to, what you care about and how you can best make a difference. In the end money isn’t what matters,” she says.
Professor Kavanagh is incredibly grateful she found her niche via Flinders and that it still motivates her nearly 40 years later.
“How many people can say they found a stimulating, meaningful field to work that is valued? It has been a privilege,” she says.
Fun fact: Her mum didn’t know she was pregnant with twins until her brother David was born. She was born 15 minutes later, on the other side of midnight, so they have different birthdays!