Dr Naomi Priest’s broad research interest is to integrate social and epidemiologic methods to examine and address inequalities in health and development across populations and place and throughout the lifecourse. This includes social epidemiology and qualitative research to understand differences in health and development experienced by children and youth from Indigenous backgrounds and from ethnic minorities, and explanations for observed differences across intersecting identities and experiences such as gender, socioeconomic position, and disability. Much of this work focuses on patterns, mechanisms and prospective influence of adverse early life exposures and stressors, including discrimination, stigma and bias.

She is also interested in socialisation processes among children from stigmatised and non-stigmatised groups, including development of racial/ethnic attitudes, bias, stereotypes and prejudice.

A third area of her research is focused on initiatives to counter stigma, discrimination and bias and promote diversity and inclusion among individuals, organisations and across society.

Dr Naomi Priest received her PhD in 2009 in population health at the University of Melbourne. She then completed a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) post-doctoral fellowship 2010-2014 also at the University of Melbourne with training in social epidemiology. In 2014-15 she was a Visiting Scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

She was recently awarded a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (2017-2020) to continue her work on How does early life adversity “get under the skin” to influence lifelong health? – Identifying opportunities for prevention among Aboriginal and ethnic minority peoples.