Christopher Rissel


Christopher Rissel is an Australian health promotion expert. The son of German migrants to Australia, he attended St Aloysius' College and graduated in 1979. He received a BSc Psych from the University of New South Wales in 1985, a Master of Public Health from the University of Sydney in 1990, and PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1994.
Christopher Rissel has worked in health promotion in several Area Health Services in New South Wales, and was the Director of the Health Promotion Service in the Sydney South West Area Health Service. He has over 250 peer-reviewed publications and dozens of research reports. One significant project was the , the first large scale national sexual health survey of Australians, covering topics including age of first sex, numbers of partners, prostitution, BDSM, circumcision. The results of the Second Australian Study of Health and Relationships were published in volume 11, issue 5 of the journal Sexual Health, 2014 noting changes since the first study.
Research interests now focus on childhood obesity prevention, and the promotion of active travel, particularly cycling He is co-author of the report 'Cycling: Getting Australia Moving – Barriers, facilitators and interventions to get more Australians physically active through cycling' and was invited to address the . He led the NSW Health Promotion Demonstration Research Project Cycling Connecting Communities from 2007 to 2009. He is currently the Chief Investigator of the , an ARC funded study to evaluate the impact of a new bicycle path in inner Sydney.
He was the Editor-in-Chief of the from 1992 to 1998, and is actively involved in the New South Wales Branch of the . He is on the Editorial Board for the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, and the .
He currently is the Director of the based in the , and is Professor at the .