Geography

Profile

Kate graduated from the Royal Holloway, University of London in 1998 with a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geochemistry. Afterwards she spent 5 years working in the commercial world of the city of London as an IT programme planner and management information analyst. She then changed career by completing an MSc in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at University College London (UCL) which led to her employment on an award winning Knowledge Transfer Partnership between UCL and Camden Primary Care Trust (2004-2007) where she explored the use of GIS and geodemographic techniques for informing public health practices. She was awarded her PhD in Health Geography from UCL in 2008. At UCL she also worked as a post-doc research fellow on an interdisciplinary project combining the disciplines of spatial planning, geography, GIS and history to develop greater understanding of what urban planning features influence the success of suburban town centres.

Kate joined the staff at Portsmouth as a lecturer in Human Geography in Jan 2010 where she is contributing to teaching within the fields of social, urban and health geography and GIS.

Awards

• May 2009 Winner of Best Knowledge Transfer Partnership at the University College London, UCL Awards for Enterprise 2009.
• Aug 2008 Runner up for Association of Geographic Information (AGI) Best Overall Paper for: Haklay and Jones on ‘GIS and Usability: Why your Boss should buy you a larger monitor.’ Presented at the AGI annual Conference, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Sept 2008.
• Oct 2008 Winner International Journal of Market Research Collaborative Research Award: for Farr, Wardlaw and Jones on ‘Tackling health inequalities using geodemographics: a social marketing approach.’

Current Research Interests

My research builds on the work carried out during my KTP, PhD and inter-disciplinary post doctoral studies giving me expertise in the spatial integration of multi-scaled socio-economic and population health data (both quantitative and qualitative) and its analysis for inter-disciplinary hypothesis formation, testing and research.

In the domain of health I am keen to pursue research into:

• How the access, quality and visualisation of spatial data can be used for intervention planning;
• How the collection and integration of quantitative and qualitative data can aid the exploration of the social, health and lifestyle status of population subgroups, helping enrich our understanding of social space and environmental contexts for policy and planning decision making

Geographies Of Health Using Geodemographic Classifications

This research explores the modelling of health related behaviours using Geodemographics for applications in social marketing and preventative health. It uses a series of inductive analyses, developed by combining health survey data, operational health data and geodemographic classifications, to explore the spatial distributions of health-harming behaviours related to diseases of comfort (obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking). Of interest is the notion of health outcomes being influenced by processes operating at different spatial and social scales.

New Cartographies Of Health

This research sets out to explore the development of new representations of health inequalities that are both useful and usable to health professionals building upon spatial representations known as Chorems. The aim of this research is to look at how existing health maps are understood and then investigate how new geographic representations of health (which combine quantitative spatial analysis of social status, lifestyle status and health outcomes) help facilitate a deeper understanding of health inequalities.

Geo-Visualisation Of Health-Harming Behaviours

This stream of work builds on previous research involving health surveys. Geodemographics and national databases of hospital episodes are combined to develop geo-visualisation tools for supporting decision-making within the public health intervention arena. This research explores the feasibility of a spatial framework to aid decision making and investigates health professional user-requirements. The work places particular importance on effective harnessing of optimal spatial structures and scales for the geo-visualisation of health data to help provide new insights for decisions concerning working practices of healthcare professionals.

Healthy Places: Population Health, Urban and Social Environments

Within this research I am interested in the exploring the walkability of community spaces and their potential to encourage physical activity to improve health outcomes and reduce long-term morbidity of lifestyle related illnesses such as diabetes and obesity. Such illnesses are now one of the top priorities of NHS public health departments across the UK and it is important that we know how different characteristics of the built environment can encourage (or discourage) physical activity and walkability? Not only do we need to understand how people move around their urban environments and how this may differ across different socio-demographic groups but we also need to understand the extent and complexity of such social space and networks.

Teaching

Kate contributes to teaching on both the undergraduate and postgraduate courses within the Department. She uses both her theoretical and practical application experience to ground her teaching and contributes to units such as ‘Geographies of Well-being’, ‘Geographies of Health’ , ‘Geographical Data Analysis’ and ‘Foundations in Human Geography’.

Research Supervision

I am happy to supervise research on any of the above topics and would suggest any prospective students contact me by email.

Examples of dissertations I have supervised:

• A spatial comparison of food opportunities and behavioural choices of teenagers in different types of schools in London, (current MSc, UCL).
• A Local Geographical Analysis of Retail Patterns - An extended social-spatial study into London’s suburban town centres, (undergraduate 2007, UCL).
• Testing for the existence of 'clone towns' in London suburbs. (MSc 2008, UCL).
• Development of an historical GIS (HGIS) working environment for London and its suburbs using maps from 4 historical periods, (2008, UCL intern).
• Spatial analysis of socio-economic variables across London’s suburbs, (2007, UCL intern).
• A geodemographic analysis of Accident and Emergency attendance in Camden, (2006 MSc, UCL).

Recent Publications

More recent publications