Carla Meurk

Associate Professor Carla Meurk is an established researcher and academic leader based at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR) and holds an Adjunct Associate Professor appointment in the School of Public Health, The University of Queensland. She currently serves as Associate Head and Principal Researcher of the Forensic Mental Health Research Stream as well as the Military and Veterans’ Mental Health Research Stream at QCMHR.

Research Interests

• Forensic mental health service delivery and policy
• Suicide prevention and surveillance, especially in military and justice-involved populations
• Physical health and physical-activity interventions for people with severe mental illness
• Substance-use disorder screening and management within public mental-health services
• Culturally secure mental-health care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth
• Data-linkage approaches to understanding mental health crises

Across more than 40 recent publications (2021-2025) her work demonstrates a consistent focus on translating epidemiological and mixed-methods findings into service-level recommendations, with particular attention to high-risk and underserved groups such as forensic inpatients, military personnel, and justice-involved youth.

Grants & Collaborations

While specific grant titles are not detailed in the provided text, the breadth of multi-institutional, multi-year studies and large-scale national surveys indicates sustained competitive funding from national health and medical research schemes. Collaborative partnerships span policing agencies, defence health services, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, and state health departments.

Labs & Teams

Carla Meurk leads two flagship research streams at QCMHR: the Forensic Mental Health Research Stream and the Military and Veterans’ Mental Health Research Stream. These multi-disciplinary teams are housed within the Park Centre for Mental Health at Wacol, Queensland, and interface directly with clinical services, policy makers and consumer networks to ensure rapid translation of research into practice.