Associate Professor Matthew McGrail

Head Regional Training Hub Research

Medical School (RCS)
Faculty of Medicine
m.mcgrail@uq.edu.au
+61 7 493 12941

Overview

Associate Professor Matthew McGrail is the Head of Regional Training Hubs research at UQ’s Rural Clinical School. Joining UQ in Nov 2017, he is based at the Rockhampton Clinical Unit, and he is chair of the research and evaluation working group of UQ’s Regional Medical Pathway as well as chair of UQ RCS’s medical graduate cohort longitudinal tracking study (UQ MediCoS).

Matthew has worked in the university sector for over 20 years, working mostly as a researcher in rural health. He was originally trained as a statistician, expanding his skills across GIS and software development, completing his PhD in 2008. He has been lead biostatistician on 3 large NHMRC-funded RCTs that are published in the world-leading general medical journal, the Lancet. Matthew’s research is mostly underpinned by the overall objective of improved access to health care for rural populations, mainly focused in the medical sector. He has a unique blend of ‘generalist’ research skills and experience across the disciplines of statistics, geography, rural health, econometrics, public health and clinical research.

Matthew has a particular interest in the ongoing concerns with medical workforce distribution, connecting that through his research and evaluation to health policies, training pathways and healthcare systems. To date he has been a chief investigator on two separate Centres of Research Excellence, one on medical workforce dynamics and the other on rural and remote primary health care access. He has also co-researched with various GP training organisations, specialty colleges, rural workforce agencies, as well as state and commonwealth health departments

Research Interests

  • Rural medical workforce training
  • Workforce distribution
  • Access to health care
  • Rural health workforce policy
  • Health services research
  • GIS methodologies in health

Research Impacts

Matthew has over 130 peer reviewed journal publications. He is globally recognised for his research of medical workforce training and distributional outcomes, which directly impacts healthcare access for rural populations. He was a lead investigator on the completed Centre of Research Excellence in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care, under which he developed improved measures of healthcare access, notably producing the national Index of Access.

He was also a chief investigator of the NHMRC-funded Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) longitudinal study of doctors (data collected 2008-18), under which he led the rural supply and distribution research theme. These data are still used as key source of national evidence of the medical workforce. In 2018, the MABEL project was awarded the Best Impact Prize from the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand, primarily due to the body of work from the rural theme. A key outcome of MABEL was the Modified Monash Model (MMM) classification, which he co-developed with Emeritus Prof John Humphreys. From 2015, the MMM has been adopted to underpin most Commonwealth Department of Health policies in rural health.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Monash University
  • Graduate Diploma in Information Technology (Software Development), Swinburne University of Technology
  • Bachelor (Honours) of Science, University of Melbourne

Publications

View all Publications

Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Book

Book Chapter

  • McGrail, Matthew, Nasir, Bushra and Fox, Jordan (2023). Populations at special health risk: rural populations. Reference module in biomedical sciences. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-323-99967-0.00091-0

Journal Article

Conference Publication

Other Outputs

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Master Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Master Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor