People, Health and Communities Research Group: expertise and projects

Our inter and transdisciplinary research aims to enhance the lives of people who use drugs by focussing on the prevention of harms and drug-related deaths. We take a social perspective with people who use drugs and acknowledge the structural disadvantages of factors such as poverty, social exclusion and homelessness that impact on the lives of people who use drugs.  We value and work with people with lived/living experience as well as service providers to underpin our research approaches, using methods that enable us to develop new perspectives on drug use and the prevention of drug-related harms. 

We have three solution focused research workstreams. Workstream one focuses on prevention of harms including drug-related deaths Workstream two concerns evaluation and improvement of service provision for people who use drugs. Workstream three works on understanding the lived experience of the lives of drugs users (including stigma and structural violence), ensuring that their voice is heard and used to make a difference to their lives. 

Areas of expertise include:

• injecting Drug Use and associated harms (including Novel Psychoactive Substances) 
• covid-19 impact on harms and drug-related deaths among PWUD  
• harm reduction and Blood Borne Virus Prevention 
• medication Assisted Treatment and Injecting Equipment Provision in the UK  
• effectiveness of treatment for cocaine/stimulant use amongst people who inject drugs  
• understanding stigma in accessing help and support for drug use 
• lived experience of substance use and treatment  

Leads: Dr Alison Munro and Dr Steve MacGillivray 

The ELPAR team works with adults who have long-term, post-acute or multi-morbid conditions that cause impairments, disabilities, and participation restrictions. We seek to understand the issues they face and to work with them to develop person-centred interventions that support them in rehabilitation, recovery and in living with their conditions.

Working at the intersection between healthcare and community living, we are an interdisciplinary research group, with expertise in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, podiatry, psychology, public health, and nursing. We draw upon our professional and interdisciplinary knowledge in our research.

We use multiple qualitative, quantitative, novel and participatory methods and work with our study populations, to co-produce, develop, evaluate and implement new interventions. Our interventions focus on enhancing rehabilitation, activity, and participation to improve health, wellbeing and quality of life. We increasingly use technology to deliver these interventions and aim to ensure equitable access for all. We work closely with health and social care practitioners and services to ensure that our research addresses real-world issues and is implementable within services and systems.

• Adults with impairments and disabilities due to long-term and multi-morbid conditions
• Intersections between acute care, rehabilitation and community living
• Co-production, implementation and evaluation of person-centred interventions and technological solutions to improve health and wellbeing outcomes
• Multiple qualitative, quantitative, and participatory methods, novel method development, randomized controlled trials; large-n surveys and longitudinal studies in Health Technology Assessment

The Healthy Active Ageing Team research experiences of growing older (from mid to later life), particularly concerning marginalised older people with an important focus on the key challenges of population ageing. We emphasise the positive contributions that an ageing population can bring by addressing issues of ageism in community and service settings.

Our research is theoretically driven using theories such as socio-ecological and place theory, intersectional feminism, standpoint theory, and life course theory alongside theories of cultural safety and humility. Working with health and care professionals, older people, families, informal carers and policy makers, our work often takes environmental and socio-cultural perspectives and uses transdisciplinary, community based participatory frameworks to address social marginalisation, and the social and health inequities associated with growing older.

We incorporate knowledge translation mechanisms to ensure our work makes a positive difference to older people in terms of their health, community living and service experiences and use. 

Areas of expertise include:

• placemaking with older people and communities
• age friendly communities and cities
• intergenerational and age-friendly ecosystems
• intergenerational identities, relations, and relationships
• life-course perspectives on ageing
• palliative and end of life care
• ageing, technology and digital inclusion
• living with dementia and dementia care
• understanding successful and positive ageing
• precarious housing and homelessness among older people
• assisted living and long-term care
• chronic disease and co-morbidities in old age
• ageing, gender and health

Lead: Professor Judith Sixsmith 

The group conducts applied research in mental health services and public mental health in collaboration with i) health services researchers, ii) clinical & public health professionals, iii) statisticians & health economists, & iv) researchers in education fields. Our work spans the spectrum of mental health and illness in adolescent and adult populations, including early intervention, theoretical and conceptual work on particular disorders as well as biopsychosocial approaches to multimorbidity across mental and physical health. We lead the development and analysis of multi-item measures for different assessment requirements and settings. We are specialists in patient reported outcomes and health-related quality of life. A lot of our work is secondary data analysis. The team is highly experienced in planning evaluation projects - including trials - for diverse stakeholders such as charities, government institutions, and industry. 

Areas of expertise include:

• understanding experience and phenomenology of mental illness: psychosis, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder 
• interventions to improve mental health & health-related quality of life/HRQoL 
• multi-morbidity and co-morbidity: epidemiology, assessment and outcome 
• public mental health and population health and wellbeing indicators 
• statistical methods and statistical modelling (quantitative psychology) 
• Patient Reported Outcome Measures/PROMs |Patient Reported Outcomes/PROs 
• applied psychometrics (item response theory, latent variable models)