pathway: Health and Wellbeing/Health, Wellbing & Society

Within my research, I will carry out longitudinal analysis to study the associations between adverse childhood experiences and cardiometabolic health outcomes during adulthood, using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. I plan to expand on existing research by assessing the influence of lifestyle and environmental factors, such as physical activity, socioeconomic status, or home environment. This may be important for determining specific groups who may be at an increased level of risk. Additionally, I intend to investigate whether interventions such as physical activity or psychological skills training may impact upon physiological responses to mental stress.

The aim of my PhD research is to identify environmental predictors of educational outcomes for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in England. My PhD research will utilise linked administrative datasets to examine how home and local environments can support positive educational and health outcomes for SEND children. This will be an interdisciplinary project, involving public health, psychology and education.

Digital health is often seen as the future of healthcare. Yet, disadvantaged groups are being left behind. My research explores why digital interventions for health promotion, such as fitness and diet apps, work less well for people in lower socioeconomic groups. To do this, we will develop a novel ‘digital health readiness’ scale which will be used to measure individual-readiness for digital health. Alongside, we will co-produce a ‘pre-intervention’ which will help those in disadvantaged communities to improve their digital health readiness, to better benefit from digital health interventions, and to take advantage of the digital health revolution.

My research is investing the social prescribing system which involves health and social care professionals referring individuals to community resources via a ‘link worker’. This approach aligns with a shift towards recognising social determinants of health and aims to address the rising use of pharmaceuticals impacting individuals and the environment through traces in wastewater. The voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector plays a pivotal role in providing these community resources, including support groups, physical activities, advocacy, and nature-based interventions. This PhD aims to characterise VCSE dynamics and the link between social prescribing and pharmaceuticals through a mixed methods approach.

Physically active learning is a pedagogical approach combining movement with learning in curricular lessons. Increasing evidence suggests the approach benefits education and physical activity outcomes amongst young people. Research in this field has largely focused on primary schools, with little attention given to its potential for adolescents, for whom effective school-based physical activity interventions are lacking. My mixed-methods research seeks to combine health and education paradigms to explore how physically active learning might be implemented successfully in British secondary schools, including initiating the co-design of an intervention with key stakeholders.

Taking a trans-national perspective, my research seeks to examine how the ‘performative’ and individualised culture of schools in the UK and Sweden impacts on practices of judgement and comparison among pupils. Specifically, the research uses an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to investigate body, appearance, and health monitoring in friendship contexts between adolescent girls. Bringing together theoretical contributions from poststructuralist, feminist new materialist and post-qualitative perspectives, my project involves end-users, eating disorder charities and schools in the co-creation of educational resources, designed with an arts-based, socio-critical approach.

My PhD will consider how the physical, psychological, and sociological health outcomes found from kitesurfing interact to improve QoL for disabled people. The study will identify the benefits of kitesurfing across health disciplines and the challenges and barriers to participation, the benefits to family and caregivers, the outcomes in different settings, and the effectiveness of new therapeutic interventions. I will conclude with a list of recommendations for kite schools and the government on the health benefits of kitesurfing and how to implement it most effectively.

I will consider how non-normative parenting identities understand their experiences of love, intimacy, and emotional satisfaction in their adult relationships and if they are impacted on by broader structures.

I will ask participants to download the app 1 Second a Day to document every day a photo or video that captures their emotional wellbeing. I will then use these images as well as semi-structured interviews to create a piece of ethno-drama for the local community.

This will contribute to existing scholarship in health and wellbeing, the sociology of the family, the sociology of emotions, as well as performance-based research methods.

My research will use a mixed methods approach to explore women’s experiences and health care professionals’ experiences of physical activity throughout pregnancy and motherhood. These experiences will involve different cultural perspectives and how support (or a lack of) is provided for these women. Psychological and sociological theoretical frameworks will be applied to support my research, including the self-determination meta-theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000), psychological empowerment (e.,g Zimmerman, 1995), and theories of fear (judgement, harm). This research will be a foundation for future interventions, knowledge exchange event, podcasts and mainstream dissemination, to improve culturally diverse mothers’ wellbeing and identify appropriate physical activity for their needs, health, culture and lifestyle.

My research is investigating the impact of a novel mental health intervention called surf-therapy. Surf therapy programmes provide an opportunity to take on the challenge of learning to surf and to experience surfing in a non-judgemental, supportive group Surf therapy combines physical activity, exposure to nature, and peer support, all of which are reported to have beneficial effects on mental health, and specific mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety and PTSD. I will be working with the ‘surfwell’ team who run the surf therapy program in the Devon and Cornwall Police.