Rate My Professor Gabrielle Jenkin

Research Associate Professor Gabrielle Jenkin is a social scientist in the Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago, Wellington, where she serves as Director of the Suicide and Mental Health Research Group. With training in epidemiology and public health, she holds a BA in Sociology, Diploma in Public Health (Distinction), Master of Public Health (Distinction), and PhD. Jenkin has undertaken quantitative and qualitative health research in numerous public health areas, including tobacco and smoking, alcohol and drink driving, gambling, food and nutrition policy, food marketing, obesity, the politics of health promotion, mental health, and suicide. Her current focus is on suicide, suicide prevention, mental health services, and acute mental health facilities.

Jenkin led the process evaluation of the Multi-level Intervention for Suicide Prevention in New Zealand (MISP-NZ) and served as Principal Investigator on a University of Otago-funded project studying media discourse on suicide news reporting, with findings published as "News media coverage of stakeholder views on suicide and its reporting in New Zealand" (Crisis, 2020, with B.E. Slim and S. Collings). She is Co-Principal Investigator on the Suicide Mortality Review Feasibility Study funded by the Health Quality and Safety Commission on behalf of the Ministry of Health. Key publications include "‘How can you not be traumatised’: Experience of paramedics occupationally exposed to suicide" (Paramedicine, 2025, with R. Lopes de Lyra, S.K. McKenzie, and S. Every-Palmer); "Should menstrual cycle data be collected during suspected suicide autopsies?" (New Zealand Medical Journal, 2024, with A. Hoskin, S.K. McKenzie, and E.B. Cooney); "Preventing suicidal behaviours with a multilevel intervention: A cluster randomised controlled trial" (BMC Public Health, 2018, with S. Collings et al.); and "Contemporary issues in acute mental health facility design: insights from the Aotearoa-New Zealand experience" (Kotuitui, 2023). She supervises PhD students on topics including the impact of suicides on first responders, adolescent mental health services, and menstrual cycle effects on suicide.