Allied Health and Community Research

Our research aims to extend our understanding, scientific and sociological knowledge and innovative professional practice to improve the wellbeing of individuals, communities and society as a whole. Our dynamic team of researchers are experts in their professional fields and recognised both nationally and Internationally. 

Research is at the heart of our School endeavours and underpins the teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as opportunities for our staff to undertake consultancy.

Our Research Centres and Groups

Researcher in the School of Allied Health and Community contribute to one or more of our Internationally renowned Research Centres and research Groups:

• Association for Dementia Studies 
  Under the leadership of Dr Shirley Evans, the team of expert researchers in the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) are engaged in cutting edge research and education focusing on people living with dementia, their families and carers.  

• Mood Disorders Research Group
  Dr Amy Perry and Dr Katherine Gordon-Smith, investigate the complex factors that contribute to the causes of bipolar disorder, psychotic illness, schizoaffective disorder and postpartum psychosis.
• Living Well with Long Terms Conditions
  This research group is led by Dr Dez Kyte and Dr Kostas Papadopoulos. The LWLTC group aims to facilitate the development and implementation of high-quality research and knowledge exchange, targeted at helping people with long-term conditions and their families to live well.

Research impact

The School’s transformational research projects seek to address some of the major issues both within our professions, local services, our community and beyond it. By pulling together academics working across disciplines to tackle important, social, scientific and environmental challenges, these projects are making an impact on people's lives and helping to expand our base of world-leading research. 

Research-led teaching

Our research-excellence underpins the content and delivery of all our teaching programmes – undergraduate and postgraduate. We are committed to enabling all of our students to profit from a culture of learning aligned with our research and knowledge-transfer ethos, which is based upon critical enquiry, debate and self-motivation.

We work in Collaboration and Partnership with our professional colleagues to ensure that our research is informed by and applicable to practice and that our students are evidence-based professionals.

Research Degree Programmes

The School of Allied Health and Community researchers are passionate about offering supervision to research students at all levels of education. We have a wide range of research interests and work together in interdisciplinary supervisory teams to support students to achieve their research goals in a range of health-related topics. There are four Higher Research Degree programme across the school including:

• Allied Health Studies
• Dementia Studies
• Occupational Therapy
• Social Work and Social Policy

We currently offer two types of research degree programme in the School of Allied Health and Community; Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). We can offer students supervision across the healthcare professions, including Allied Health, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Paramedics, Physicians Associates, Social Work, and Social Welfare. Our research focus is on extending and improving healthcare professional practice and patient outcomes and therefore applied research, evaluative research and educational research related to Health care is encouraged.

For more information please contact the Doctoral School.

Examples of Research Students projects

Simulating Practice Education: Identifying first year occupational therapy student learning during practice education and determining the effectiveness of simulated practice 

• An exploration and evaluation of the practice of social prescribing (SP) in a rural area 
• Autism Spectrum Conditions and Traits in Bipolar Disorder 
• Lived experiences of early inflammatory arthritis patients perceptions and interpretations of shared decision making from early symptom onset to first treatment year 
• How people with dementia experience counselling? 
• Men with bipolar disorder and the perinatal phase 
• The use of self as a male practitioner in a child protection social work arena 
• Do digital weight management innovations support focused health prevention through their use within Musculoskeletal services? 
• Narratives of lived experiences of healthcare practice in clinical education: an exploration of the nutrition gap 
• Breaking the cycle: Are children born to care leaver parents at an increased risk of ending up in care? 
• Relationship diversity in older adulthood; How new relationships impact caring for a person with dementia. 
• The impact of a strategic regional approach to scaling up Meeting Centres for people affected by dementia