Dr Kanika Mehta is a postdoctoral researcher in the Diabetes and Population Health team at the Baker Institute. Her research focuses on understanding how dementia affects people with diabetes, a group at disproportionately higher risk of cognitive decline. As people with diabetes now live longer due to improved cardiovascular health, age-related complications such as dementia are becoming increasingly common. Kanika’s work tracks these changes at the population level, and by identifying emerging dementia trends in high-risk groups such as those with diabetes, her work aims to inform prevention strategies and reduce the growing burden of dementia.

Kanika completed her PhD in dementia epidemiology (2018–2022), where she investigated risk factors and blood markers associated with poor cognitive function in Australian cohorts. Building on this foundation, her current research sits at the intersection of diabetes, dementia and epidemiology. She analyses linked, national registries and population cohorts to assess dementia prevalence, hospitalisation, and mortality patterns in the setting of diabetes. She is also an investigator on Australian diabetes data linkage projects and is part of the international collaboration that evaluates the global trends in the incidence of diabetes, diabetes complications, and mortality (GLOBALDIAB).

Alongside traditional epidemiological methods, Kanika is interested in harnessing advanced statistical methods, including machine learning, to develop dementia risk prediction models tailored for people with diabetes that can inform early interventions and personalised prevention strategies.

Kanika’s research has been recognised through several awards, including the Australian Society for Medical Research Award and an Early Career Researcher Development Fellowship. Through this combination of population-level research and advanced analytics, her long-term goal is to reduce dementia risk and improve healthy ageing.