Tell us about yourself

I am a Professor of Mental Health & Data Science within the School of Health & Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University and Co-Director of the Scottish Centre for Policing & Public Health (SCLEPH). SCLEPH is an international academic and practice collaboration with external stakeholders of Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland, Mental Health Foundation Scotland, Edinburgh Futures Institute, and the Global Law Enforcement & Public Health Association. SCLEPH’s academic base is within Edinburgh Napier University, and it has strong links with the Scottish Institute of Policing Research (SIPR).

My research focuses on investigating outcomes for people, services, and care pathways in the areas of policing and public health, suicide, vulnerability, and multi-agency response to suicidal behaviour, mental health distress and substance use. My methodological approaches are frequently quantitative, involving population-linked data in advancing knowledge in these areas.

In recognition of my policing and public health collaborative work, I was a finalist in the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2023 for making a difference to society, together with SCLEPH Co-Director Dr Inga Heyman, Associate Professor of Policing & Public Health and Clair Thomson, Police Scotland’s Head of Strategic Public Health Collaboration Unit.

Why did you want to become a Research Affiliate?

As SCLEPH co-director, and on behalf of a much wider highly collaborative team, I am keen to connect and share ideas, opportunities, research, and make more impact on practice and policy. I have been working at the intersect of policing and public health since 2018 and together with Dr Heyman, brought the ‘LEPH2019’ conference to Edinburgh and have been involved in the LEPH conferences since. I co-authored the landscape review on policing and public health and was on programme committees for the UK ‘4 Nations’ policing and public health conference and subsequent webinar series.

Being affiliated with the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre will bring mutual benefits in enhancing our UK and international networks. I am keen to discuss and collaborate on education, research studies and trials across the UK and internationally.

How does your research connect to the Centre’s mission and values?

As Co-Director of SCLEPH, my work is oriented towards making a difference to society. To that end, lived experience voices are involved in as many activities as possible, including co-production of events, studies, several journal articles, and reports. These have been used in knowledge exchange activities to inform practice and policy in public health and policing in Scotland and promote harm reduction for society’s most vulnerable. Recent publications have covered topics of vulnerability, naloxone carriage by Police Scotland to reverse opioid overdose deaths and an evaluation of cross-service collaboration to assess benefits to community health and wellbeing.