Yun-Hee Jeon

Professor Yun-Hee Jeon is a registered nurse, academic and leading Australian researcher in psychogeriatrics and gerontology. Her research focuses on developing innovative and creative approaches to improving the health and wellbeing of older people with dementia, depression or other chronic illnesses. She studies ways to improve care quality and service delivery for these vulnerable population groups, develop workforce capacity in aged care, and establish evidence- and practice-based benchmarks and tools for assessment and outcome measurement in dementia. She also explores in-depth, the experiences of people with chronic illness and their carers to help inform and provide context to research and policy. She is recognised for her significant contributions to building the evidence for person-centred care, a philosophy that she says underpins all of her research. “We focus on understanding and addressing the need of an individual and their capabilities rather than impairment. Our research investigates care interventions to help older people maintain an optimum level of autonomy and independence despite their clinical condition”, notes Professor Jeon. Additionally to address the dearth of skilled aged care workforce she has developed and tested a Clinical Leadership in Aged Care Program. She is a co-convener of the IPA Consortium for Psychosocial Research to advance mental health of older people in the Asia-Pacific region (PROMOTE). She is an honorary member of INTERDEM (a pan-European network of researchers on early detection and psycho-social interventions in dementia) and part of the Global Action on Personhood (GAP) in Dementia Core Group Membership.