ARC-GM PhD Fellowships

ARC PhD Fellowship award holders:

• Norina Gasteiger

  Year of study:  

  Commenced October 2020/21

  PhD title:

  Effective implementation of digital technologies: A realist evaluation of how virtual and augmented reality can help to up-skill home care workers in hand hygiene practices

  Supervisor(s): 

  • Prof. Dawn Dowding,
  • Dr. Sabine van der Veer
  • Paul Wilson

  Research interests: 

  Norina is an eHealth enthusiast, with a particular interest in the evaluation and implementation of innovative digital health technologies. She has previously worked with robots, patient portals, social media and mobile apps.

  Research summary: 

  Norina is planning to conduct a study using realist evaluation methods to explore how virtual and augmented reality can help to up-skill home care workers in hand hygiene practices. As part of her development she has been invited to attend meetings of the Digital Health Research Interest Group in the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, and is participating in journal clubs and postgraduate student activities (including presenting at the PGR student conference) in the eHealth Research Centre.

  Publications

  • Gasteiger, N., Vercell, A., Khan, N., Dowding, D., Davies, A.C. & Davies, A. (2023) Digital interventions for genomics and genetics education, empowerment, and service engagement: A systematic review. Journal of Community Genetics
  • Gasteiger N, Dowding D, Norman G, McGarrigle L, Eost-Telling C, Jones D, Vercell A, Ali S, O'Connor S., (2023). Conducting a systematic review and evaluation of commercially available mobile applications (apps) on a health-related topic: the TECH approach and a step-by-step methodological guide. BMJ Open. 
  • Gasteiger N, van der Veer S, Wilson P, Dowding D., (2023). Exploring Care Home Workers’ Views on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Hand Hygiene Training: A Realist Interview Study. Health & Social Care in the Community 
  • Gasteiger N, Van der Veer S, Wilson P, Dowding D., (2022). Exploring how, for whom and in which contexts extended reality training 'works' in upskilling helthcare workers: a realist review. IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)
  • Gasteiger N. Vercell A, Davies A, Dowding D, Khan N, & Davies A., (2022). Patient-facing genetic and genomic mobile apps in the UK: a systematic review of content, functionality, and quality. Journal of Community Genetics
  • Gasteiger N, van der Veer SN, Wilson P, Dowding D. (2022). How, for whom, and in which contexts or conditions augmented and virtual reality training works in upskilling health care workers: realist synthesis. JMIR Serious Games
  • Gasteiger N, Van der Veer S, Wilson P, Dowdin D., (2021). Upskilling health and care workers with augmented and virtual reality: protocol for a realist review to develop an evidence-informed programme theory. BMJ Open
  • Gasteiger N, Dowding D, Ali S M, Scott A, Wilson P, Van der Veer S., (2021). Sticky apps, not sticky hands: A systematic review and content synthesis of hand hygiene mobile apps. Journal of the American Medial Informatics Association.

  Poster(s)/Presentation(s):

  • ARC-GM  Capacity Building Showcase October 2021: 'Virtual and augmented reality for upskilling care home workers in hand hygiene practices: A realist evaluation'
• Christine Camacho

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2020/21

  PhD title:

  Measuring Mental Health Resilience at a Population Level

  Supervisor(s):

  • Dr Luke Munford 
  • Prof. Roger Webb
  • Prof. Peter Bower. 

  Research interests:

  Public health, mental health, implementation science, healthy ageing

  Research summary: 

  Resilience in a key facet in positive mental health. The majority of early research on mental health resilience focused on individual level interventions. More recently there has been a growing focus on community resilience, in response to threats such as climate change, economic recession and COVID-19. The measurement of community level resilience is an emerging field, with most frameworks focusing on disaster resilience. Christine will explore the development of a mental health related framework for measuring community resilience in England using secondary data sources.

  Publications:

  • Camacho C, Webb R.T, Bower P & Munford L. (2023) Levelling up or widening the gap? An analysis of community renewal fund allocation in English regions using an economic resilience index. Regional Studies, Regional Science 10:1, 496-50

  Blogs:

  • Levelling up or widening the gap? (Policy@Manschetser, published 3rd May 2023)

   

• Melissa Surgey

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2020/21

  PhD title: 

  Commissioning form and function in place-based health and care

  Supervisor(s): 

  • Prof. Kath Checkland,
  • Dr Jonathan Stokes,
  • Dr Lynsey Warwick-Giles

  Research interests: 

  • The history and definition of place in health and local government policy,
  • Integrated care systems and sustainability and transformation partnerships,
  • Integrated commissioning, Centralisation and decentralisation of health functions,
  • Commissioning organisational form, governance and accountability,
  • Health and social care devolution.

  Research summary: 

  Melissa’s PhD research focuses on how health and care commissioning is changing with the introduction of place-based partnerships and Integrated Care Systems. In particular she is looking at how place is defined in health and social care policy; how commissioning functions are distributed at system, place and neighbourhood level; and what governance and accountability mechanisms underpin this.

  More information about Melissa's research is available from her PhD project page here

  Presentations:

  Commissioning and place-based partnership: where are we now, and what next? (Health Service Research UK 2022)

   

  Defining place in health and care policy (Health Service Research UK 2021)

   

  Posters:

  • ARC-GM  Capacity Building Showcase October 2021: 'The role of commissioners in place-based health and care'

   

  Blogs:

  • With great power: Taking responsibility for integreated care (Policy @ Manchester, published July 2022)
  • Connecting researchers with policymakers, the media and the public: Standing up for Science workshop (published June 2022)
• Mia Bennion

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2020/21

  PhD title: 

  Enhancing engagement with between-session work in Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based interventions

  Supervisor(s):

  • Prof. Penny Bee
  • Dr. Amy Blakemore
  • Prof. Karina Lovell

  Research interests: 

  With a background as a Psychological Well-being Practitioner, Mia’s main research interest areas are low intensity interventions and guided self-help.

  Research summary: 

  Mia is undertaking a study is to enhance patient engagement with between-session work in Low Intensity (LI) CBT-based interventions, by seeking to further understand what, how and why factors affect patient engagement with between-session work, the findings of this study can inform future patient information resources, workforce training guidelines and service planning.

  More information about Mia's research is available from her PhD project page here

  Poster(s)/Presentation(s):

  • ARC-GM  Capacity Building Showcase October 2021: 'Enhancing engagement with between-session work in Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based interventions'
• Yao Wei

  

  Year of Study 

  Commenced October 2021/22

  PhD title:

  Evaluating the impacts of Greater Manchester devolution on population health

  Supervisor(s):

  • Dr Laura Anselmi
  • Prof Matt Sutton 
  • Dr Luke Munford

  Research Summary 

  This PhD study is looking to answer three research questions:

  1. What is the impact of devolution on an individual’s experienced health outcomes, such as self-assessed general health, health impacts on daily life and activities, mental health status. These outcomes are not available in administrative data.
  2. What are the possible explanations and underlying mechanisms that could explain how devolution impacts population health? (i.e., which policies targeting wider determinants of health such as health behaviors may have contributed to this?)
  3. How does devolution contribute to the reduction of inequalities in health outcomes within the GM population?

  More information about Yao's research is available from his PhD project page here

  Publication(s):

  • Wei Y, Anselmi L, Munford L, Sutton M. (2023) The impact of devolution on experienced health and well-being. Social Science & Medicine. 

   

• Charlie Moss

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2021/22

  PhD title: 

  An investigation of the relationship between socioeconomic status, health and health care use: short and long term effects

  Supervisor(s):

  • Dr. Laura Anselmi
  • Prof. Matt Sutton 

  Research summary: 

  More information about Charlie's research is available from her PhD project page here...

  Publications:

  • Moss C, Anselmi L., Sutton M. (2022). Emergency department outcomes for patients experiencing homelessness in England: retrospective cross-sectional study. European Journal of Public Health.

  • Moss C, Munford LA, Sutton M. (2022) Associations between inflexible job conditions, health and healthcare utilisation in England: retrospective cross-sectional study. BMJ Open.
• Barshana Goswami

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2021/22

   

   

• Helena Bilsborough

  Year of study: 

  Commenced October 2021/22

  PhD title:

  What motivated older adult volunteers to participate in peer mentoring schemes? 

  Supervisor(s): 

  • Dr Helen Hawley-Hague
  • Professor Chris Todd

  Research interests: 

  Helena’s research interests and PhD fall around the topic of healthy ageing. She is particularly interested in utilising the older adult population as peer-volunteers to increase their physical activity levels, and also to increase the activity levels of other older adults who are less active.

   

   

   

• Liwei Mou

  Year of study:

  Commenced October 2021/22

  PhD title:

  What is the solution to emergency department pressures?

  Supervisor(s): 

  • Dr William Whittaker
  • Dr Yiu-Shing Lau

  Research interests: 

  Liwei has a strong enthusiasm for health economics, with an interest in exploring health systems, evaluating effects of health policies and improving equality of accessing to health services.

  Research summary: 

  Liwei’s PhD project aims to find the drivers of winter pressures in emergency department and evaluate existing schemes for reducing these pressures in Greater Manchester or nationally.