Research
Addressing inequalities in child health
My research aims to improve child public health and reduce inequalities.
I lead the Health Inequalities Policy Research Group HIP-R with my colleagues Ben Barr and Sarah Rodgers. Our vision is to improve health and reduce inequalities through the study of the determinants of health and wellbeing and the policies that impact them.
Within HIP-R my research focuses on addressing child health inequalites. My NIHR Research Professorship (2022-27) is entitled “Tackling child health inequality. An interventional epidemiology platform to inform policy.” My professorship aims to bring together data to evaluate the effects of interventions and policies to help reduce child health inequalities in the UK and to inform policy decisions internationally. This involves social epidemiological analysis of population level linked datasets and birth cohort studies in the UK and Denmark, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Copenhagen, where I'm an Affiliate Professor of Child Public Health in the Section of Epidemiology.
I’m an academic director for Health Equity North. Check out our reports here, especially the N8/NHSA Child of the North report.
I'm an investigator on the Wellcome Trust funded Children Growing Up in Liverpool (C-GULL) birth cohort and civic data linkage.
I’m the lead for LiLaC - the Liverpool-Lancaster collaboration - within the NIHR School for Public Health Research; and an investigator for the NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit; and a member of INRICH.
I led the child health component of the Due North Inquiry on Health Equity for the North (2014); and a Cochrane review of global child deworming policies.
I welcome enquiries from potential PhD students.
Current work focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of health inequalities in children and assessing the impact of interventions and policies to interrupt the generation of inequalities in health across the life course.
Areas of interest: Health inequalities. Child health. Child Poverty. Social determinants of health. Policy evaluation. Natural experiments. Lifecourse epidemiology. Causal mediation analysis. Resource allocation. Recession/austerity and health. Research to inform policy. Cystic Fibrosis. Asthma. Cohort and longitudinal data analysis. Applied statistics. Evidence synthesis and dissemination. Systematic review methods.
Research groups
Research grants
NIHR Three Schools Prevention Research Development Grant_Children at Risk Research Development Network
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
June 2024 - November 2024
The Health Of Care Experienced People_PHASE 1 (old PRU)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
April 2019 - September 2024
New Policy Research Unit (PRU)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
January 2024 - December 2028
NIHR Oxford Brain Health Biomedical Research Centre - Data Science Theme
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
December 2022 - November 2027
Tackling child health inequality. An interventional epidemiology platform to inform policy
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
December 2022 - November 2027
SPHR3
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
April 2022 - May 2027
How does emotional support influence the relationship between social disadvantage and adolescent health outcomes?
THE HEALTH FOUNDATION (UK)
October 2022 - September 2024
Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Teams at Liverpool & Lancaster Universities Collaboration for Public Health Research (PHIRST @ LiLaC) (PHIRST @ LiLaC)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
March 2022 - February 2027
Evaluation of the Health Impacts of Universal Credit: a mixed methods study
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
May 2021 - August 2025
Evaluating the health impact and cost-effectiveness of Ways-to-Wellbeing, a whole system approach to mitigate poverty over the life course
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
May 2021 - May 2024
RESTORE - Research for Equitable SySTem RespOnse and REcovery
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
May 2021 - October 2023
Addressing inequalities in ‘Children in Need’: A population linkage study to inform policy
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
November 2020 - June 2023
Mental Health and Substance use in Children and Families Experiencing Adversity or OveRcoming Adverse ChiLdhood Experiences (ORACLE)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
February 2020 - March 2023
Children Growing up in Liverpool (C-GULL)
WELLCOME TRUST (UK)
October 2020 - December 2029
NIHR ARC 2 national social care implementation projects
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK), LCCG - LIVERPOOL CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (UK)
October 2019 - March 2026
Evaluating the impacts of universal policies on child health inequalities: how best can we exploit the predictive value of the integrated pre-school checks?
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
February 2017 - March 2019
Liverpool and Lancaster Universities Collaboration for Public Health Research (LiLaC 2)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
April 2017 - September 2022
Tackling inequalities in child health: Harnessing data to improve lives.
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
November 2017 - March 2023
From Policy to Inequality: Assessing the effects of policy interventions on inequalities in child health using natural experiments.
WELLCOME TRUST (UK)
May 2015 - April 2016
Cystic Fibrosis Epidemiological Network (CF-EpiNet) – Harnessing Data to Improve Lives.
CYSTIC FIBROSIS TRUST (UK)
October 2015 - March 2021
Clinical Exploitation of Data Produced by the Pseudomonas International Genomics Consortium.
CYSTIC FIBROSIS TRUST (UK)
October 2013 - September 2016
The effect of socioeconomic status on outcomes people with cystic fibrosis: A longitudinal study.
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
September 2009 - December 2014
IMPACT: developing and evaluating economic models for planning optimal cardiovascular disease prevention strategies.
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
May 2010 - May 2014
Research collaborations
Professor Simon Capewell
Professor Paul Garner, International Health Group
WHO Malaria Guidelines - Evidence
Professor Peter Diggle
Lancaster University
MRC Fellowship
Professor Rosalind Smyth
MRC Fellowship supervisor
Professor Margaret Whitehead
Professor Finn Diderichsen
University of Copenhagen
MRC Fellowship