Supervisors' research areas

Dr Wendy Baird

Wendy´s current research interest focuses on inequalities in health and access to health services for those with chronic disabling diseases and those socially excluded from care.

Wendy is also involved in research to inform policy regarding the future intentions of the dental workforce. Previous research has utilised both qualitative and quantitative methodology to explore the attitude of dentists on providing care for people with a physical disability; the importance of oral health to people with MS; and the barriers to dental care and attendance pattern for people with MS.

Professor Paul Bissell

Paul has published widely in the area of medicines usage and pharmaceutical care, both from a professional and a user perspective and has a particular interest in pharmacy and public health. Whilst much of his research has had an applied policy focus, he is especially interested in developing more theoretically informed research in the medicines usage sphere. Currently, Paul is principal investigator for the Department of Health funded evaluation of supplementary prescribing in nursing and pharmacy and is also a PI for the Leverhulme funded Changing Families Changing Food programme. Paul has considerable experience of research student supervision. He is interested in supervising students working in the areas of medicines usage and management, evaluation of innovative models of pharmaceutical care, patient safety, ethics and health care, compliance, health care relationships and the sociology of the body.

Professor Elizabeth Goyder

Liddy is currently leading the research theme of health inequalities. She is developing a research programme around the public health implications of type 2 diabetes and the potential for health service interventions to impact on both the overall burden and current inequalities in outcomes related to diabetes. She is also involved in health services research projects investigating factors that influence access to health services and in investigating the trade-offs between equity, access and cost-effectiveness in health service provision. She is also a member of the New Deal for Communities national health theme evaluation team.

She maintains research interests in public health aspects of screening, particularly how screening test results are reported and the use of models to evaluate the potential cost-effectiveness of screening programmes. She also has research interests in primary care, particularly around the interface between primary and secondary care services.

Dr Ravi Maheswaran

Ravi´s research interests include geographical and environmental epidemiology and cardiovascular epidemiology. Current research is focussed on geographical variation in health and health care and he heads the GIS research theme.

Professor Petra Meier

Petra is currently involved in several projects investigating the effectiveness of public health policies, especially in relation to alcohol and other addictions and is also interested in exploring the link between alcohol and health inequalities. She'd be particularly interested in supervising topics in areas closely aligned with her current direction of work. Candidates are welcome to approach her with a description of their research interests.

Dr Rachel O'Hara

Rachel´s research interests include occupational health and safety, patient safety, risk management and safety culture. She has managed a range of research projects addressing risk assessment and management, perceptions of occupational health and safety, and the evaluation of interventions to reduce exposure to work related hazardous substances, as well as the impact of work related musculoskeletal disorders.

She´d be particularly interested in supervising the following areas of work: Communication in health care, human reliability and error, organisational change, organisational safety culture, risk perception and communication, work design.

Dr Mark Strong

Mark joined the section in February 2006 as a clinical lecturer in public health. Mark is currently working on methods for managing structural uncertainty in health economic decision models. He has a general interest in the application of Bayesian methods to research problems that arise in the field of public health. Mark is currently supervising MSc/MPhil but not PhD theses.