DrKara Anderson

Kara Anderson's research interests place a heavy focus on the burden of non-communicable diseases, particularly bone health, and ways to help alleviate that burden, both on individuals and the healthcare system. She is deeply interested in how we can use developing technologies to improve diagnostics, risk evaluation and disease management, as well as supporting patient advocacy.

Since beginning their research career, Kara has explored technologies for measuring bone health with a goal to identify individuals suitable for early intervention, but she believes this doesn't go far enough. Kara is passionate about the interconnectedness in human body systems and how we can find ways to support whole-body health by exploring the relationships between diseases, particularly as they appear in the general population. Some specific disease systems that they are interested in include:

• cardiovascular health
• metabolic health including PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, previously known as PCOS)

Kara believes that population-based cohort studies provide a unique opportunity to investigate holistic health and the interconnectedness between diseases, and her work with the Geelong Osteoporosis Study is a key example. This unique cohort of randomly selected adults - notably with no "healthy" inclusion criteria - provide an opportunity to investigate how common noncommunicable diseases and conditions appear in the real world, and the links between them. Her upcoming work aims to leverage this cohort study to answer questions driven by the community, to support the community.