Sarah Appleton

Dr. Sarah Appleton is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Adelaide Medical School, part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide. She is a chronic disease epidemiologist who commenced her role in 2010 after completing her PhD (by publication) in the Discipline of Medicine. Her work focuses on population health approaches to identify individuals at risk of poor health outcomes, particularly in sleep medicine and respiratory conditions.

• Current research explores undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in men and its links to diabetes, depression, and quality of life through the MAILES study.
• She collaborates with the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health and the Woolcock Institute at Sydney University to improve OSA risk stratification using electrophysiological signals (EEG, ECG) and heart rate variability analysis.
• Her future goals include securing research funding to investigate OSA in women, who remain underrepresented in current studies despite high prevalence.

Dr. Appleton is an Associate Investigator for the North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS) and mentors postgraduate students and early-career researchers.