Rate My Professor Catherine Chojenta

Associate Professor Catherine Chojenta serves in the School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a PhD in Gender and Health and a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) Honours, both from the University of Newcastle. Her career at the university began in 2001 as a Project Assistant in the Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing, advancing through positions such as Research Assistant, Research and Communications Officer, Research Academic, Research Fellow, HMRI Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer, and to her current role as Associate Professor. Chojenta is the Program Convenor for the Master of Clinical Epidemiology and Graduate Certificate in Clinical Epidemiology. She coordinates courses including EPID6420 Fundamentals of Epidemiology and EPID6600 Research Protocol Design. She has supervised 19 PhD candidates to completion, six honours projects, and currently supervises seven PhD candidates on women's health projects. In 2021, her supervisory team received the Vice Chancellor's Award for Supervision Excellence.

Chojenta's research examines women's health and wellbeing across the life course, emphasizing the epidemiology of perinatal mental health. She applies mixed methods, quantitative analysis, qualitative approaches, and data linkage to identify risk factors for poor health and protective factors for wellbeing. As Co-director of HMRI’s Women’s Health Research Program and Co-lead of the Worldwide Wellness of Mothers and Babies research program, she contributed to the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health from 2001 to 2013, authoring reports and peer-reviewed articles that informed the National Women’s Health Policy 2010. She has produced over 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and 26 conference outputs, including 'The impact of antenatal care on neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis' (PLoS ONE, 2019), 'Factors affecting utilization of antenatal care in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis' (PLoS ONE, 2019), 'Perinatal relapse or recurrence rates in women reporting preconception anxiety and/or depression: a longitudinal study using linked data' (Archives of Women's Mental Health, 2025), and 'Interventions to Prevent Relapse or Recurrence of Preconception Anxiety and/or Depression in Perinatal Women: A Systematic Review' (Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2025). She has presented at Marcé Society International Conferences in Melbourne (2016), Paris (2012), Pittsburgh (2010), and Sydney (2008), among others, and reviews manuscripts for journals such as the British Medical Journal, Medical Journal of Australia, and PLoS One. She received the HMRI Postnatal Depression Travel Award in 2012.