Health and Wellbeing (2018)
My PhD research will design, develop and test an inclusive methodology for evaluating a community education course for people with learning disabilities. Beginning with a systematic review, the research will critically evaluate methodologies for behaviour change. It will also identify methods that can potentially best achieve inclusive public health research with people with learning disabilities in the context of community education. This initial stage of the research will also evaluate ethical issues and identify potential community groups for inclusion in the later stages of the study. Precise methodology will be defined after these initial stages but it is likely that fieldwork will include collection of numeric information relating to course delivery and reported behaviour change followed by a more substantial qualitative phase including non-participant observation during training sessions and semi-structured interviews on completion of the course.
Since gaining a Masters’ degree in Social Research Methods I have worked as a researcher and manager in different public sector organisations and on many projects. More recently I have worked at Public Health England conducting service evaluation around appropriate antibiotic use and improving knowledge around the prevention of infection.
