Sue Brennan is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Cochrane Australia, in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, where she contributes to the Centre’s program of work on the translation of research into policy. Sue’s research translation activities focus on the production, dissemination and evaluation of evidence summaries and syntheses for informing policy.

As a postdoctoral fellow on the NHMRC-funded Centre for Informing Policy in Health with Evidence from Research (CIPHER), Sue contributed to the development of measures of research use in policy and the evaluation of a program designed to build capacity for research use in policy agencies. She is a co-investigator on a project to develop GRADE methods for overviews of systematic reviews, and is contributing to a Cochrane handbook chapter on narrative synthesis. She has led and co-authored reviews of public health and healthcare improvement interventions, and contributes to research on synthesis methods for complex reviews.

Sue’s doctoral research on continuous quality improvement (CQI) in primary care examined the effects of CQI on healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. Synthesis of theory and qualitative research resulted in a conceptual framework for understanding how context, teamwork and the use of CQI methods influence outcomes. Complemented by systematic reviews evaluating measures of organizational context and team factors, the framework provides guidance for the design and interpretation of CQI evaluations with the aim of addressing important gaps in existing research. These streams of work have led to involvement in research on synthesis methods used in complex reviews addressing public health and policy questions.

Sue has a PhD in health services research, an honours degree in science and a graduate diploma of education. Her Monash University Researcher Profile and list of publications can be found here.

Contact details:
T:     03 9903 0063
E:     sue.brennan@monash.edu