Emeritus Professor Niels Becker
Areas of expertise
- Biostatistics 010402
- Stochastic Analysis And Modelling 010406
- Public Health And Health Services 1117
- Epidemiology 111706
Research interests
- Controlling infectious diseases
- Triggers of adverse health events
- Analysis of foodborne disease data
Biography
Niels Becker is Professor of Biostatistics and Director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, following previous appointments at University of Melbourne, Sheffield University, Cornell University and La Trobe University.
He has enjoyed a long-term addiction to using statistical analyses to understand transmission of infection and its control. He is author of the book ‘Analysis of Infectious Disease Data’ and has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in this area. He has tried to infect others with his enthusiasm for quantitative infectious disease epidemiology, nationally and internationally, through his book, research, supervision of more than 30 higher degree candidates and by organising workshops for leading researchers and newcomers to the area. Niels has been a member of national influenza and pandemic influenza committees in Australia over the last five years and has served on an Expert Committee of WHO.
Niels has also published recently on analyses of foodborne disease incidence and the association between long-haul flights and DVT.
Researcher's projects
- Data needs at the start of an outbreak of a newly emerged infectious disease
- A new form of model for the transmission of an infectious disease, based on boosting and waning immunity
- Assessment of the effectiveness of different social distancing interventions for containment of an emerged infectious disease
- Optimal use of a stockpile of antiviral drugs for mitigating the impact of pandemic influenza
Current student projects
Gastroenteritis and Foodborne Disease in the Elderly (Martyn Kirk)
“Where’s your country? Who’re your people?”
Asking the right questions when treating risky alcohol use amongst Indigenous Australians (Ray Lovett)
Publications
- Kirk, M, Lalor, K, Raupach, J et al 2011, 'Food- and Waterborne Disease Outbreaks Australian Long-Term Care Facilities, 2001-2008', Foodborne Pathgens and Disease, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 133-139.
- Van Kerkhove, M, Asikainen, T, Becker, N et al 2010, 'Studies needed to address public health challenges of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic: Insights from modeling', PLoS Medicine, vol. 7, no. 6, p. 6.
- Ralph, A, Ardian, M, Wiguna, A et al 2010, 'A simple, valid, numerical score for grading chest x-ray severity in adult smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis', Thorax, vol. 65, no. 10, pp. 863-869.
- Tong, S, Ren, C & Becker, N 2010, 'Excess deaths during the 2004 heatwave in Brisbane, Australia', International Journal of Biometeorology, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 393-400.
- Becker, N, Wang, D & Clements, M 2010, 'Type and quantity of data needed for an early estimate of transmissibility when an infectious disease emerges', Eurosurveillance (Online Edition), vol. 15, no. 26, p. 6.
- Kirk, M, Hall, G, Veitch, M et al 2010, 'Assessing the incidence of gastroenteritis among elderly people living in long term care facilities', Journal of Hospital Infection, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 12-17.
- Kirk, M, Moffatt, C, Hall, G et al 2010, 'The Burden of Infectious Gastroenteritis in Elderly Residents and Staff of Long-Term Care Facilities, Australia', Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, vol. 31, no. 8, pp. 860-863.
- Kirk, M, Fullerton, K, Hall, G et al 2010, 'Surveillance for Outbreaks of Gastroenteritis in Long-Term Care Facilities, Australia, 2002 to 2008', Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 51, no. 8, pp. 907-914.
- Wood, J, McCaw, J, Becker, N et al 2009, 'Optimal Dosing and Dynamic Distribution of Vaccines in an Influenza Pandemic', American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 169, no. 12, pp. 1517-1524.
- Glass, K & Becker, N 2009, 'Estimating antiviral effectiveness against pandemic influenza using household data', Journal of the Royal Society Interface, vol. 6, pp. 695 703.
- Ford, R, Bammer, G & Becker, N 2009, 'Improving nurses' therapeutic attitude to patients who use illicit drugs: Workplace drug and alcohol education is not enough', International Journal of Nursing Practice, vol. 15, pp. 112-118.
- Unicomb, L, Dalton, C, Gilbert, G et al 2008, 'Age-Specific Risk Factors for Sporadic Campylobacter Infection in Regional Australia', Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 79-85.
- Hall, G, Yohannes, K, Raupach, J et al 2008, 'Estimating community incidence of Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli infections, Australia', Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 14, no. 10, pp. 1601-1609.
- Unicomb, L, O'Reilly, L, Kirk, M et al 2008, 'Risk factors for infection with Campylobacter jejuni flaA genotypes', Epidemiology and Infection, vol. 136, pp. 1480-1491.
- D'Souza, R, Hall, G & Becker, N 2008, 'Climatic factors associated with hospitalizations for rotavirus diarrhoea in children under 5 years of age', Epidemiology and Infection, vol. 136, no. 1, pp. 56-64.
- Barnes, B & Becker, N 2008, 'The impact of dispersion in the number of secondary infections on the probability of an epidemic', Journal of Statistical Theory and Practice, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 145-158.
- Ford, R, Bammer, G & Becker, N 2008, 'The determinants of nurses' therapeutic attitude to patients who use illicit drugs and implications for workforce development', Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol. 17, no. 18, pp. 2452-2462.
- Glass, K, Becker, N & Clements, M 2007, 'Predicting case numbers during infectious diseaseoutbreaks when some cases are undiagnosed', Statistics in Medicine, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 171-183.
- Salim, A, Becker, N, Moller, J et al 2007, 'An analysis for a cross-over cohort study with an application to the study of triggers of Meniere's disease.', Statistics in Medicine, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1136-1149.
- Wood, J, Zamani, N, MacIntyre, C et al 2007, 'Effects of Internal Border Control on Spread of Pandemic Influenza', Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 1038-1045.
- Barnes, B, Glass, K & Becker, N 2007, 'The role of health care workers and antiviral drugs in the control of pandemic influenza', Mathematical Biosciences, vol. 209, no. 2, pp. 403-416.
- Becker, N, Lefevre, C & Utev, S 2007, 'Estimating protective vaccine efficacy from large trials with recruitment', Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, vol. 137, no. 3, pp. 907-914.
- Caley, P, Becker, N & Philp, D 2007, 'The Waiting Time for Inter-Country Spread of PandemicInfluenza', PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science).
- Glass, K & Becker, N 2006, 'Evaluation of measures to reduce international spread of SARS', Epidemiology and Infection, vol. 134, pp. 1092-1101.
- Abhayaratna, W, Smith, W, Becker, N et al 2006, 'Prevalence of Heart Failure and systolic ventricular dysfunciton in Older Australians: the Canberra Heart Study', Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 184, no. 4, pp. 151-154.
- Abhayaratna, W, Marwick, T, Smith, W et al 2006, 'Characteristics of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction in the community: an echocardiographic survey', Heart, vol. 92, pp. 1259-1264.
- Wang , J, McMichael, A, Meng, B et al. 2006, 'Spatial dynamics of an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome in an urban area', Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol. 84, pp. 965-968.
- Unicomb, L, Ferguson, J, Stafford, R et al 2006, 'Low-Level Fluoroquinolone Resistanceamong Campylobacter jejuni Isolates in Australia', Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 42, pp. 1368-1374.
- Woodruff, R, Guest, C, Garner, M et al 2006, 'Early warning of Ross River virus epidemics: combining surveillance data on climate and mosquitoes', Epidemiology, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 569-575.
- Becker, N & Glass, K 2006, 'The impact of imported infection', in Adrian C. Sleigh, Chee Heng Leng, Brenda SA Yeoh (ed.), Population dynamics and infectious diseases in Asia, World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore, pp. 73-96.
- Becker, N, Salim, A & Kelman, C 2006, 'Air travel and the risk of deep vein thrombosis', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 5-9.
- Becker, N, Salim, A & Kelman, C 2006, 'Analysis of a potential trigger of an acute illness', Biostatistics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 16-28.
- Abhayaratna, W, Marwick, T, Becker, N et al 2006, 'Population-based detection of systolic and diastolic dysfunction with amino-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide', American Heart Journal, vol. 152, no. 5, pp. 941-948.
- D'Souza, R, Hall, G, Becker, N et al 2006, 'Effect of Ambient Temperature and Age on Salmonella Notifications in Australia', International Conference on Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure 2006, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, United States, pp. S206.
- Ball, F & Becker, N 2006, 'Control of transmission with two types of infection', Mathematical Biosciences, vol. 200, no. 2, pp. 170-187.
- Becker, N, Britton, T & O'Neill, P 2006, 'Estimating vaccine effects from studies of outbreaks in household pairs', Statistics in Medicine, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 1079-1093.
- Walker, A & Becker, N 2005, 'Health Inequalities Across Socio-economic Groups: Comparing Geographic-area-based and Individual-based Indicators', Public Health, vol. 119, pp. 1097-1104.
- Becker, N, Li, Z, Hsu, E et al. 2005, 'Monitoring Measles Elimination in Victoria', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 58-63.
- Becker, N, Glass, K, Li, Z et al. 2005, 'Controlling emerging infectious diseases like SARS', Mathematical Biosciences, vol. 193, pp. 205-221.
- Hall, G, Kirk, M, Becker, N et al 2005, 'Estimating foodborne gastroenteritis, Australia', Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 11, no. 8, pp. 1257-1264.
- D'Souza, R, Becker, N, Hall, G et al 2005, 'Climatic factors associated with hospitalisations and emergency room presentations for diarrhoea in children', <>, pp. S60.
- D'Souza, R, Becker, N, Kjellstrom, T et al 2005, 'Influence of climatic factors on hospitalisations and emergency room presentations for asthma and other (non-asthma) respiratory conditions in children', <>, pp. S50.
- D'Souza, R, Becker, N, Hall, G et al 2004, 'Does Ambient Temperature affect Foodborne Disease', Epidemiology, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 86-92.
- Becker, N & Britton, T 2004, 'Estimating Vaccine Efficacy from small outbreaks', Biometrika, vol. 91, no. 2, pp. 363-382.
- Becker, N, Li, Z & Kelman, C 2004, 'The effect of transient exposures on the risk of an acute illness with low hazard rate', Biostatistics, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 239-248.
- Becker, N, Li, Z, Lewis, J et al. 2003, 'Age-specific back-projection of HIV diagnosis data', Statistics in Medicine, vol. 22, pp. 2177-2190.
- Becker, N & Utev, S 2003, 'Preventing epidemics in heterogeneous environments', in Peter J Green, Nils Lid Hjort and Sylvia Richardson (ed.), Highly Structured Stochastic Systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, pp. 333-353.
- Kelman, C, Kortt, M, Becker, N et al. 2003, 'Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel: Record Linkage study', BMJ - British Medical Journal, vol. 327, pp. 1072-1075.
- Kelman, C, Kortt, M, Becker, N et al. 2003, 'Deep vein thrombosis and air travel: record linkage study', BMJ - British Medical Journal, vol. 327, no. 7423, pp. 1072-76.
- D'Souza, R, Becker, N, Hall, G et al 2003, 'Does ambient temperature affect foodborne disease?', Epidemiology, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. S119-120.
- Becker, N, Britton, T & O'Neill, P 2003, 'Estimating vaccine effects on Transmission of Infection from Household Data', Biometrics, vol. 59, pp. 467-475.
- Woodruff, R, Guest, C, Garner, M et al 2002, 'Predicting Ross River Virus Epidemics from Regional Weather Data', Epidemiology, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 384-393.
- Becker, N & Utev, S 2002, 'Protective Vaccine Efficacy when Vaccine Response is Random', Biometrical Journal, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 29-42.
- Becker, N & Utev, S 2002, 'Multivariate Discrete Distributions with a Product-Type Dependence', Journal of Multivariate Analysis, vol. 83, pp. 509-524.
- Becker, N & Britton, T 2001, 'Design issues for studies of infectious diseases', Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, vol. 96, pp. 41-66.
- O'Neill, P & Becker, N 2001, 'Inference for an epidemic when susceptibility varies', Biostatistics, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 99-108.
- Becker, N & Utev, S 2001, 'Threshold Results for U-Statistics of Dependent Binary Variables', Journal of Theoretical Probability, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 97-114.
- Becker, N 2001, 'The Future of Epidemiology: What is the role of Biostatistics?', Australian Epidemiological Association Annual Scientific Meeting, ed. Anne Kavanagh, Australasian Epidemiological Association, Melbourne, pp. 7-8.
- Becker, N & Marschner, I 2001, 'Advances in medical statistics arising from the AIDS epidemic', Statistical Methods in Medical Research, vol. 10, pp. 117-140.
- Becker, N & Utev, S 2001, 'A Distribution Functional Arising in Epidemic Control', in Ch.A. Charalambides, Markos V. Koutras, N. Balakrishnan (ed.), Probability and Statistical Models with Applications, Chapman and Hall - Taylor and Francis Group, United States, pp. 573-582.
- Britton, T & Becker, N 2000, 'Estimating the immunity coverage required to prevent epidemics in a community of households', Biostatistics, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 389-402.
- O'Neill, P, Balding, D, Becker, N et al 2000, 'Analyses of infectious disease data from household outbreaks by Markov chain Monte Carlo methods', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, vol. 49, pp. 517-542.
- Cui, J & Becker, N 2000, 'Estimating HIV incidence using dates of both HIV and AIDS diagnoses', Statistics in Medicine, vol. 19, pp. 1165-1177.
