Rate My Professor Kasia Szymanska

Kasia Szymanska serves as Systems Analyst and Developer in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Otago in Dunedin. With a BSc (Hons), she supports critical data management and technical infrastructure for research in child and youth health. Her work is integral to the department's efforts in paediatric research, including population health analytics and mortality studies. She is affiliated with the New Zealand Mortality Review Data Group (NZMRDG), where she holds the position of Senior Systems Analyst and Developer. In this capacity, Szymanska maintains essential data systems that underpin national mortality review processes.

Szymanska has made significant technical contributions to numerous official reports on child, youth, perinatal, and maternal mortality in New Zealand. She established and maintains the perinatal and maternal mortality and morbidity websites, collates data, and produces tables for these publications. Key examples include the Eleventh Annual Report of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee (PMMRC, 2017), the Twelfth Annual Report of the PMMRC (2018), the 11th Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee (CYMRC) data report covering 2010-2014 (2015), the 14th CYMRC data report covering 2013-2017 (2018), and the Sixteenth Annual Report (Te Pūrongo, 2024). These reports provide vital insights into mortality trends and inform public health policy. Additionally, she is a member of the Quantitative Social Science Research Group within the department, which employs advanced evaluation techniques and big data analytics from sources such as the Integrated Data Infrastructure to study child and youth population health, with a focus on neurodevelopmental conditions and mental health. Szymanska co-authored the population-level birth cohort study titled 'Mortality Risk of Youth With Neurodevelopmental Conditions: An Aotearoa New Zealand Nationwide Birth Cohort Study,' published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2026. The study analyzed 888,975 young people born between 1995 and 2009, revealing that those with neurodevelopmental conditions had nearly five times higher mortality risk before age 25 compared to peers without such conditions, with elevated risks varying by condition, sex, and cause of death. Her technical expertise facilitates national and international collaborations in these areas.