Professor Briggs has focussed his career on strengthening health systems to deliver equitable and person-centred care, especially for people living with chronic musculoskeletal health conditions and musculoskeletal pain. He has combined a career of health policy and systems research; direct work in health policy/strategy; health consulting; and clinical practice. He currently works across these domains at a senior level. He completed his PhD in 2006 at the University of Melbourne. He has always held a part-time research-academic position concurrent with senior clinical and health policy roles. Andrew is a Specialist Resarch Physiotherapist (as awarded by the Australian College of Physiotherapists (ACP) in 2016) in the field musculoskeletal (rheumatology) healthcare.

Currently, he holds a part-time, full Professor (research) appointment at Curtin University, Western Australia, where he co-leads a team in health policy and systems research with Professor Helen Slater. The programme of research is focussed on health systems strengthening through evaluation and implementation of health policy and services for musculoskeletal health and chronic pain, and examining and closing evidence-practice gaps in musculoskeletal and chronic pain care. Across these conditions and across the lifecourse, the research program targets building capacity in health systems (macro-level), within health services (meso-level) and in clincians/consumers (micro-level) to deliver high-value care.

From 2017-2019 he held a Translating Research Into Practice (TRIP) Fellowship, awarded by the NHMRC and conjointly the Foundation Fellowship in Global Musculoskeletal Health, awarded by the Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health (G-MUSC). These prestigious fellowships supported health services and health systems research in Australia and at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Since 2017 he has served as a senior a consultant to the WHO Ageing and Health Unit, Geneva, and WHO South-East Asia Regional Office, Delhi, tasked with assisting WHO in developing service- and system-level responses and evaluation frameworks to address ageing, multi-morbidity and musculoskeletal health across Members States. His responsibilities have included: i) developing care pathways for the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) approach in primary and community care settings, including leading the pathway on mobility; ii) leading implementation guidance of ICOPE into health systems and services across Member States; iii) leading a global consultation on ICOPE in Berlin in 2017; iv) analysing and reporting the ready phase of ICOPE implementation; supporting the WHO Clinical Consortium on Healthy Ageing since 2017; and leading the development of the WHO guideline for non-surgical management of chronic primary low back pain in adults in primary and community care settings (2020-2023). In 2024, he was appointed as a Senior Consultant to WHO SEARO, responsible for leading the development of the WHO South-East Asia Regional Strategy on Healthy Ageing 2024–2030. From 2018-2020 he was appointed as a Scientific Advisor to the WHO Kobe Centre, Japan. He currently serves on the Technnical Advisory Group for Healthy Ageing, WHO SEARO.

From 2020-2023 he led an international consortium to develop a global strategy to improve prevention and management of musculoskeletal health impairment. He is also a member of the International Coordinating Council of the Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health.

Andrew held a senior position in the Western Australian Department of Health for several years, responsible for leading the development and implementation of models of care for chronic diseases with a particular focus on musculoskeletal conditions through the Western Australian Health Networks. He was co-lead of the WA Musculoskeletal Helath Network in 2019 and continues similar work in other jurisdictions and internationally. In Victoria, he led the development of the Victorian osteoarthritis model of care. Andrew’s work on the development, implementation and evaluation of models of care is internationally recognised.

Andrew is a member of the WorkSafe Victoria Clinical Panel (2014-current); and served on the the Rheumatology 3 Therapeutic Guidelines development group (2015-2017); the RACGP Clinical Guidelines for non-surgical management of hip and knee osteoarthritis development group (2017-2018, first edition; 2024-current, second edition); the National Osteoarthritis Strategy development group (2018-2019); the Australian Rheumatology Association Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinical Care Standard (2022-present); the OARSI Joint Effort Initiative Steering Group (from 2018); Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care Osteoporosis and Minimal Trauma Fracture Clinical Care Standard (2026-present); and was guest editor of the international journal Best Practice and Research Clinical Rheumatology (2015-2016). He also serves as Senior Editor (Health Professional) on the Australian Rheumatology Joural.