Curriculum Vitae

(PI) The Fuel Poverty Project works in partnership with Marches Energy Agency. It is a mixed-methods project investigating the relationship between fuel poverty and health in the Midlands during the cost-of-living and energy crises, with a focus on how to improve pathways to support for those in need, including retrofit, digital technologies and policy advocacy. Read about the project here, recently covered in The Lead.

Award: £ 37,259 (Funded through a combination of pump prime funding and the ESRC)

(CI) The Working with Children and Young People to Tackle Health Inequalities Project builds on the Health Inequalities in Birmingham findings. Working directly with children and young people, the project aims to find out what barriers this group face when it comes to health and wellbeing, and what solutions they would like to implement. The project is trialing an innovative engagement model, based on play, to inform engagement policies and future research agenda and break barriers in research where children and young people are under-represented. This is a proof-of-concept project.

Award: £5420 (Research England Policy Fund)

(PI) The ‘Planning Ahead’ Project worked in partnership with Hospice UK to develop an online resource and website, for the facilitation of advance care planning discussions and the creation of advance care plans. The website was officially launched to the public on Dec 10th, 2021 by Hospice UK and Marie Curie and is now a public resource. The project is an on-going, longitudinal assessment of a digital resource. It is funded through in-kind contributions from industry, charity and academia sectors. Available at: https://advancecareplanning.org.uk/planning-ahead#page-1

(PhD Supervisor) Prepare-Support: Using simulation training to psychologically prepare clinicians for critical incidents. This project examines how to better support healthcare staff resilience through simulation training. It begins September 2025.

Award: £92,922 (Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital Charity)

RECENTLY COMPLETED RESEARCH

2021-2024: The Health Inequalities in Birmingham: Barriers encountered in underserved wards in East and West Birmingham Project was an innovative collaboration between Aston University, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC), and Citizens UK. The collaborative project aimed to better understand health inequalities in some of the most deprived wards of East and West Birmingham, and launched a series of co-produced initiatives to help tackle some of the barriers that lead to poor health outcomes, such as digital poverty and digital exclusion.

Role: Co-I

Award: £22,382 (Funded through a collaboration between: Research England Policy Fund, Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust and the ESRC)

SELECTED CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLICY, PRACTICE, IMPACT AND ENGAGEMENT

NIHR Evidence Collection on Women’s Health: Why Do Women Feel Unheard? (10.3310/nihrevidence_54676)

Inclusion of Planning Ahead website as a recommended resource in the NHS’ Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning guidance.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/universal-principles-for-advance-care-planning.pdf

NIHR Evidence Collection on Reproductive Health and Childbirth: Informed decision-making when birth defects are suspected: new research brings fresh insight  (https://doi.org/10.3310/alert_44133)

Cited in House of Lords Regret Motion debate: Dissolution of Public Health England (05/11/2021) https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/regret-motion-dissolution-of-public-health-england/

Submission of evidence to UK Parliament on the disproportionate impact of COVID 19, and the UK government response, on ethnic minorities and women in the UK:
https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/41460/1/Submission_of_evidence_for_Select_Committee_Aston_University_pdf.pdf