Miss Mary Brushe
School of Public Health
College of Health
Dr. Mary Brushe is an Adjunct Fellow at the University of Adelaide's School of Public Health and a Senior Research Officer (Epidemiology) at The Kids Research Institute. Mary completed her PhD (Public Health) in 2024, which explored early life inequalities in language development and screen time, using longitudinal cohort data and was awarded the PhD Research Excellence Category at the 2024 South Australian Science and Innovation Awards. Her expertise focuses on early childhood health and development, early language experiences, screen time in early childhood, mental health and well-being, social determinants of health and epidemiological research methods. Since completing her PhD, Mary has been working within the Indigenous Genomics team at The Kids, working amongst a multidisciplinary team aimed at addressing health inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Mary is also currently serving as President of the Public Health Association of Australia (SA Branch), Co-Chair of the Student and Early Career Committee for the International Social Epidemiology Society, and a member of the SA 0-3 Early Years Taskforce.
Mary is a Adjunct Fellow in the School of Public Health and a Senior Research Officer at The Kids Research Institute Australia. Her research focuses on understanding and supporting the health, development and education of young children. She has a particular interest in screen time in early childhood and how families can be best supported to use screen time in healthy ways. Her PhD focused on the early home language environments, how that impacts early development and early life socioeconomic inequalities. Mary also collaborates on a range of projects focusing on children and adolescent mental health and wellbeing, food insecurity and school breakfast programs, and evaluations of government and non-government early years programs.
Dr Brushe has expertise in social epidemiology, longitudinal data analysis, participant recruitment and data collection, the development of interventions through co-design methodologies, literature review/synthesis, public health advocacy, and research translation to ensure her research reaches policy makers and the community.
Mary is also the Vice President of the Public Health Association of Australia (SA Branch), an active member of the 0-3 Early Years Taskforce in South Australia, the PHAA Child and Youth Health Special Interest Group, and the Co-Chair of the Student and Postdoc Committee for the International Social Epidemiology Society. She is always interested in forming new collaborations with passionate researchers, policymakers or practitioners working in public health and the early years system.
| Date | Position | Institution name |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 - ongoing | Adjunct Fellow | University of Adelaide |
| 2024 - ongoing | Senior Research Officer, Epidemiology | The Kids Research Institute Australia |
| 2016 - 2023 | Research Study Manager | Telethon Kids Institute |
| 2015 - 2016 | Health Promotion Officer | Emerging Minds |
| Date | Type | Title | Institution Name | Country | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Award | SA Science and Innovation Award, PhD Research Excellence | SA Science Awards | Australia | $10,000 |
| 2023 | Award | Perron Career Launching Award | The Kids Research Institute Australia | Australia | $20,000 |
| 2022 | Award | SA President's Award | Public Health Association of Australia (SA Branch) | Australia | - |
| 2022 | Award | Finalist CSL Florey Next Generation Award | University of Adelaide | Australia | - |
| 2022 | Scholarship | Healthy Development Adelaide Travel Grant | Healthy Development Adelaide | Australia | $1000.00 |
| 2022 | Award | Embrace Youth Mental Health Award, Conference Category | Telethon Kids Institute | Australia | $2934.00 |
| 2021 | Award | VOTE Recognition Award | Telethon Kids Institute | Australia | - |
| 2020 | Scholarship | Philip Ryan Doctoral Candidate Travel Grant 2020 | University of Adelaide | Australia | - |
| 2020 | Award | L'Oreal UNESCO For Women in Science Mentoring Scheme 2020 | L'Oreal and UNESCO | Australia | - |
| 2019 | Award | Peers and Partners Travel Award | Telethon Kids Institute | Australia | - |
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 - 2023 | University of Adelaide | Australia | PhD (Public Health) |
| 2011 - 2015 | University of Adelaide | Australia | Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours) |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Brushe, M., Lynch, J., Reilly, S., Melhuish, E., & Brinkman, S. (2021). The Word Gap: At What Age Does it Emerge? Results from a Prospective Cohort Study. In INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY Vol. 50 (pp. 1 page). ELECTR NETWORK: OXFORD UNIV PRESS. DOI |
| 2018 | Calic, D., Brushe, M., Parsons, K., & Brittain, C. (2018). Self-disclosing on Facebook can be risky: Examining the role of trust and social capital. In S. Furnell, & N. Clarke (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium on Human Aspects of Information Security & Assurance (Haisa 2018) (pp. 225-235). UK: University of Plymouth. WoS1 |
| 2017 | Brittain, C., Parsons, K., Calic, D., & Brushe, M. (2017). 'Anti'-Social Media: Narcissism and Self-Control as predictors of facebook self-disclosure. In Proceedings of the 28th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, ACIS 2017. Scopus1 |
Mary has been awarded over $1.3million in Category 1 and 2 funding and over $650,000 in contract research and internal funding.
- 2021 - 2024, Brushe, M., Finlay-Jones, A., Brinkman, S., Trapp, G., Melhuish, E., Lynch, J., Reilly, S. Screen time in early childhood: Addressing the next emerging public health crisis. Channel 7 Telethon Trust.
- 2019 - 2023, Brinkman, S., Brushe, M., Melhuish, E. Modern families in the era of mobile technology: understanding how the hidden home environment impacts child development. NHMRC Ideas Grant APP1183515.
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Location | Program | Supervision Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 - 2025 | Principal Supervisor | Children coming to school hungry: A longitudinal analysis using the Australian Early Development Census | The Kids Research Institute Australia | Bachelor of Health Sciences (Public Health Placement) | Other | Full Time | Tashayini Thambyrajah |
| 2024 - 2024 | Co-Supervisor | Supports for children and adolescents experiencing food insecurity: An international policy review. | The Kids Research Institute Australia | Global Health Internship, Princeton University and The Kids | Other | Full Time | Eloise Berman and Jenna Elliot |
| 2024 - 2024 | Principal Supervisor | Understanding policies and programs across Australia that aim to support children and families dealing with food insecurity | The Kids Research Institute Australia | UniSA Public Health 3rd Year Internship | Other | Part Time | Charlotte Le Page |
| 2023 - 2023 | Co-Supervisor | The effects of breakfast skipping on children’s social and emotional wellbeing | University of Adelaide | Masters of Public Health | Master | Full Time | Sophie Burnell |
| 2021 - ongoing | Co-Supervisor | Influence of school suspensions on child and adolescent wellbeing | Telethon Kids Institute | Global Health Internship, Princeton University | Other | - | Cindy Cheng |
| 2020 - 2020 | Principal Supervisor | Development of a Framework for the Categorisation of Screen-based Children's Content | Telethon Kids Institute | Public Health Practice Student Internship, University of Western Sydney | Other | - | Georgia Walters |
| Date | Role | Committee | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 - ongoing | Member | 0-3 Early Years Task Force | Raising Literacy Australia | Australia |
| 2021 - ongoing | Member | Data Linkage Committee | Telethon Kids Institute | Australia |
| 2021 - ongoing | Co-Chair | Student and Early Career Committee | International Social Epidemiology Society | United States |
| 2019 - ongoing | Treasurer | Child and Youth Health Special Interest Group | Public Health Association of Australia | Australia |
| 2019 - ongoing | President | PHAA (SA Branch) | Public Health Association of Australia | Australia |
| 2015 - 2017 | Member | Youth Advisory Council | Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health | Australia |
| 2014 - 2016 | Representative | Lived Experience Council | COPMI National Intitative | Australia |
| Date | Role | Membership | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 - ongoing | Member | Society for Epidemiologic Research | United States |
| 2018 - ongoing | Member | Public Health Assoiation of Australia | Australia |
| 2018 - ongoing | Member | Australiasian Epidemiological Association | Australia |
| 2018 - ongoing | Member | Healthy Development Adelaide | Australia |
| 2017 - ongoing | Member | International Association for Youth Mental Health | Australia |
| Date | Topic | Presented at | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 - 2023 | Social and emotional well-being trajectories throughout childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal population level study. | Society for Mental Health Research Conference | Society for Mental Health Research | Australia |
| 2023 - 2023 | Early Start Screen Smart Program: Developing and piloting an intervention to support parents of 0-2 year olds with their child’s screen time | International Congress on Digital Media and Developing Minds | Children and Screens | United States |
| 2023 - 2023 | Understanding the quality of young children’s screen time: E-CHILDS Framework. | International Congress on Digital Media and Developing Minds | Children and Screens | United States |
| 2023 - 2023 | The causal effect of parent-child interactions on children’s language development at 3 and 4 years | 17th World Congress on Public Health | World Congress of Public Health | Italy |
| 2022 - 2022 | Social and Emotional Wellbeing Trajectories throughout Childhood and Adolescence: A longitudinal population level study. | - | Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference | - |
| 2021 - 2021 | Inequalities in screen time during the early years: Findings from a prospective cohort study. | Annual General Meeting | Society of Social Medicine and Population Health | United Kingdom |
| 2021 - 2021 | The Word Gap: At What Age Does it Emerge? Results from a Prospective Cohort Study. | - | World Congress of Epidemiology | - |
| 2021 - 2021 | At What Age Does the Word Gap Emerge? Findings from the Language in Little Ones Study | Australian Early Development Census National Conference 2021 | Australian Government Department for Education, Skills and Employment and Telethon Kids Institute | Australia |
| 2020 - 2020 | Inequality within the home language environment: Findings from a Prospective Cohort Study. | South Australian State Population Health Conference 2020 | Public Health Association of Australia (SA Branch) | Australia |
| 2020 - 2020 | The Language in Little Ones Research Study | Annual General Meeting | Playgroup South Australia | - |
| 2019 - ongoing | How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life? | Australian Public Health Conference 2019 | Public Health Association of Australia | Australia |
| 2018 - ongoing | Language in Little Ones Study - Results from the First Wave | Nursing Council | South Australian Child and Family Health Service | Australia |
| 2018 - ongoing | Language in Little Ones Study - Results from First Wave | Buisness Intelligence Technical Forum | South Australian Department for Education | Australia |
| 2018 - ongoing | The contribution of home language exposure to intergenerational transmission of inequality | Australian Early Development Census National Conference 2018 | Australian Goverment Department of Education | Australia |
| 2017 - ongoing | The Language in Little Ones study | Online Interview | Early Learning Review | Australia |
| Date | Title | Type | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 - 2024 | MRFF Mental Health Grant Assessment Committee | Grant Assessment | MRFF | Australia |
| 2022 - ongoing | Academic Journal Reviewer - Pediatrics | Journal Review | Pediatrics | - |
| 2021 - ongoing | Academic Journal Review | Journal Review | New Ideas in Psychology | - |
| 2021 - 2022 | Academic Journal Reviewer | Journal Review | BMC Public Health | - |
| 2021 - 2021 | Academic Journal Reviewer | Journal Review | Paediatric Medicine | - |
| 2019 - 2019 | AEA 2019 Scientific Meeting Abstract Reviewer | Conference Review | Australiasian Epidemiological Association | Australia |
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