About
51
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Introduction
I'm a psychobiologist interested in ways that psychological experiences can change health at the cellular, system, and person level. I've carried out research using experimental, observational, and secondary data methodologies looking at stress, nature/human interactions, arts and health, and hemispheric lateralisation. I'm working on a variety of health/immunity projects looking at psychological aspects such as solidarity, person-environment interactions, and workforce dynamics.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - January 2022
March 2016 - September 2017
October 2014 - February 2016
Education
January 2017 - December 2017
February 2008 - December 2012
September 2006 - August 2007
Publications
Publications (51)
Unemployment has been associated with poorer health, but few studies have examined the biological mechanisms that confer these health decrements. Further, no studies to date have examined differences across employment groups to consider whether employment (in whatever means) is preferential in terms of health. The present study utilised secondary d...
The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated extraordinary human resilience in order to preserve and prolong life and social order. Risks to health and even life are being confronted by workers in health and social care, as well as those in roles previously never defined as “frontline,” such as individuals working in community supply chain sectors. Th...
The benefits of exposure to nature for health and well‐being have been demonstrated across multiple disciplines. Recent work has sought to establish one ‘dose’ or type of nature exposure that is universally beneficial, which has proven difficult.
We use the principles of psychopharmacology to look beyond the use of dose as a concept for prescribing...
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, frontline workers have carried out essential roles to keep society going, while others have been called to minimise the infection rate to limit the burden on frontline workers. In this sense, navigating Covid-19 has necessitated interdependence between frontline workers and key stakeholder groups (such as their col...
This unique text takes a holistic approach to show you how different biological and medical aspects of health operate at the cellular level all the way up to the societal level, and back again.
It explains key biological aspects of health at the cellular level (such as epigenetics and oxidative stress) to give you a solid understanding of how heal...
The book begins by overviewing the timeline of the pandemic and how it affected life, followed by a discussion of the ethics and legal aspects of the pandemic. It then discusses behaviors during the pandemic (e.g., social distancing, protesting) before discussing experiences during the pandemic (e.g., prejudice, well-being, stress, joblessness, fam...
Frontline workers have worked in extremely challenging conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic, placing them at higher risk of burnout. Novel psychosocial influences on frontline workers’ burnout were revealed during the pandemic that are unaccounted for in existing psychological theory. In this chapter, we focus on two of those aspects relevant to...
The phrase ‘in it together’ has been used liberally since the outbreak of COVID‐19, but the extent that frontline workers felt ‘in it together’ is not well understood. Here, we consider the factors that built (or eroded) solidarity while working through the pandemic, and how frontline workers navigated their lives through periods of disconnection....
The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the Panel with the main policy commitments made in relation to the health and social care workforce in England. The Panel has agreed that it will evaluate seven commitments across three broad policy areas within its framework for evaluation. The Panel proactively sought the views of a shortliste...
Report submitted to the UK Health & Social Care Committee as part of a recent call for evidence titled: Workforce: recruitment, training and retention in health and social care.
This report compiles findings from the CV19 Heroes project and recent "Have Your Say" survey undertaken December 2021 to January 2022.
Evidence presented at the 29th session of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus
Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic moves into a new phase with the successful roll out of vaccines in adults in the UK, there is an opportunity to reflect, re-evaluate, and reconfigure public health responses. Of importance is the need to defend and protect the frontline workforce who have sacrificed so much over the last 18 months. The present essay sum...
Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic increased risk of poor mental health has been evident across different cultures and contexts. This study aims to examine whether allostatic load (AL) prior to the pandemic was predictive of poor mental health during the pandemic, and if any associations were moderated by neuroticism.
Methods
Data were extrac...
Objective: Frontline workers have shown extraordinary resilience and sustained efforts since the outbreak of COVID-19. The present study used semi-structured interviews with 38 frontline workers in the UK and Ireland to explore the psychological impact of working through COVID-19.
Design: The qualitative data were analysed systematically using them...
The context of Covid-19 has offered an unusual cultural landscape for examining how workers view their own position relative to others, and how individuals respond to prolonged exposure to workplace stress across different sectors and cultures. Through our recent work tracking the well-being of frontline workers in the UK and Ireland (the CV19 Hero...
A mixed methods evaluation of the See with Fresh Eyes programme delivered by Look Again in partnership with Create Gloucestershire.
This programme was awarded a grant by the BUPA Foundation, which included commissioning this evaluation undertaken by the University of Gloucestershire.
A mixed method evaluation of the Nature on Prescription social prescribing programme produced by the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership and delivered by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust
Evidence presentation to the APPG on Coronavirus session 20, 23rd March 2021.
Objectives
Arts on prescription (AoP) interventions are part of mainstream social prescribing provision in primary health care. Whilst the body of evidence for AoP interventions has been developing, this has primarily focused on well-being.
Study design
The present work is an observational longitudinal study on a community-based AoP social prescri...
The purpose of this article is to offer an alternative, more nuanced analysis of the labelling of frontline workers as heroes than originally proposed. Here, we argue that the hero narrative in itself need not be problematic, but highlight a number of wider factors that have led to the initial rise (and subsequent fall) in support for labelling fro...
Abstract withheld until peer review
The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated extraordinary human resilience in order to preserve and prolong life and social order. Risks to health and even life are being confronted by workers in health and social care, as well as those in roles previously never defined as "frontline", such as individuals working in community supply chain sectors. Th...
The benefits of exposure to nature for health and wellbeing have been demonstrated across multiple disciplines, with empirical data serving as a foundation for conceptual frameworks. However, with fundamental issues apparent even within the definition of what “nature” means, and a general assumption that nature will be beneficial to all in all ways...
Understanding what predicts wellbeing and burnout in those on the frontline of Covid-19 in the UK and Ireland.
The literature addressing the potential for nature and natural environments to reduce stress and improve health outcomes has a relative paucity of work regarding interactions with animals, particularly those that are not domestic pets.
The present observational study sought to understand whether a brief encounter with non‐domestic animals might red...
A synthesised overview of our research in social prescribing, specifically surrounding Arts for Health interventions. This work draws on several published papers and reports with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods designs.
Poster presented at the Behavioural Science and Public Health Network annual conference at University of Derby, UK.
Background: Arts on Prescription programmes are designed to support the mental health and wellbeing of patients with a variety of clinical needs within the community. Despite a number of studies reporting benefits, there are some patients that do not see improvements in their wellbeing. Yet, there is limited research investigating the reasons for t...
Background
Arts on prescription interventions have grown in number in recent years with a corresponding evidence base in support. Despite the growth and presence of these interventions, there have been no evaluations to date as to what factors predict patient success within these referral schemes.
Methods
Using the largest cohort of patient data t...
Background: This paper draws on a longitudinal study exploring the outcomes of an arts referral programme in General Practice in the South West of England since 2009. It focuses on the qualitative responses of the patient cohort
Methods: Using qualitative methods and thematic analysis, this paper explores and considers the responses from n = 1297...
Background:
Arts for health interventions are an accepted option for medical management of mental wellbeing in health care. Updated findings are presented from a prospective longitudinal follow-up (observational) design study of an arts on referral programme in UK general practice, over a 7-year period (2009-2016).
Methods:
Primary care process...
Objective: Unemployment is a type of chronic stressor that impacts human health. The reasons for how the stress of unemployment affect health is still a matter of discussion. One of the pathways from chronic stress to ill health is mediated by cortisol, and so we set out to compile extant data on how its secretion is affected by unemployment.
Desig...
Previous research has investigated the endocrinological consequences of unemployment as a likely pathway behind chronic stress and negative health outcomes. Despite these early attempts at delineating the neuroendocrine consequences of the chronic stress experienced by the unemployed, identifying a consistent and stable effect has remained elusive....
Objectives:
Neuromodulation of the immune system has been proposed to be influenced by hemispheric lateralisation (HL). The present study tested whether HL predicted CD4+ levels, statistically controlling for confounders.
Methods:
Employing two assessments of HL, 68 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1+ patients were followed prospectively. Nume...
Communication from the brain to the immune system is influenced by hemispheric lateralisation (HL). Left-HL is immunopotentiating, right-HL is immunosuppressive. Only one study has examined the effects of HL on the progression of HIV (Gruzelier et al., 1996). That study included a small sample with very little control over third variables. The pres...
Past studies examined relationships between hemispheric lateralisation (HL) and immune system functioning. However, there has been no up-dated systematic review of this research area. This article reviews relevant published studies, evaluates study quality and effect sizes. Eleven studies were selected: three revealing a relationship between weaker...
Questions
Questions (4)
I have a longitudinal dataset where I am looking to examine whether individuals change their category membership of a variable (with four categories) over four time points (baseline, 1y, 2y, 3y). Ideally I would like to see how individuals change this category membership across all of the time points, not just if they do. I've looked at a number of different tests that could be used for this, but short of creating some sort of change metric for each time point (which is not ideal as the categories are not ordinal), I am not sure how to do this.
Any suggestions welcome, thank you!
We are conducting a systematic review with three authors. Our common language is English, however between us we also speak three other languages, but there is only one person in the group that speaks any of the other languages. If we don't include papers in those other languages, we risk bias from only including English papers; but if we do include papers in any of those other languages we risk bias from only one author reviewing those papers.
Does anyone else have experience of this problem? How do we address the trade-off between publication language bias and reviewer bias?
Thanks in advance!
I was wondering if anyone knew of scales that try to measure individuals' feelings of exceptionalism (i.e. "that applies to most people, but not me") or perceptions of exceptionalism in others (i.e. "the rules don't matter to them") at all please? I'm aware there is an American Exceptionalism scale, but that (as far as I know) tends to capture the in-group concept, whereas I'm looking for something that captures deviance from the rules or norms of the in-group. Thanks in advance!
I will shortly be carrying out a study where participants will undergo a lab stressor and then will be supine for 90 minutes. Due to their position it would be difficult to provide them with a TV show to watch during this time, so I am looking for recommendations for audiobooks/podcasts that are suitably interesting (to prevent falling asleep) but unemotional - preferably ones that have been used successfully in similar situations previously.
Does anyone have experience of using podcasts/audiobooks in this way?
Can you recommend any that might be suitable?
Thanks very much in advance!
