Geography

Profile

After completing an undergraduate degree in Psychology and more recently submitting my thesis for a Masters in Health Psychology, I joined the Department of Geography to undertake PhD studies in October 2011. My Masters thesis was concerned with young men’s experiences of health, help-seeking and use of health care services. My research interests concern the social, cultural and environmental determinants of health and wellbeing. I am particularly interested in health-related behaviours such as how smoking behaviours are influenced by social and ecological factors at different geographical levels. I also have first-hand experience as a ‘Health Trainer’ working with adults in Portsmouth helping them in areas such as stopping smoking, eating healthily, increasing physical activity and reducing alcohol intake.

Research

My PhD research is investigating the co-consumption of tobacco and cannabis in young people. In recent years there has been increasing concern with adolescent smoking behaviour and particularly for the role of tobacco in cannabis consumption, and vice versa. Specifically, I am looking at the two substances when they are used together and the individual and ‘place’ level factors that are associated with co-consumption.  

This research has two parts. One part will involve analysing quantitative data collected from national school based surveys on tobacco and cannabis consumption to map the prevalence of co-consumption and the ecological factors associated with cannabis and tobacco use. Another part of the research will be to use qualitative methods to investigate the dynamics of co-consumption within the experiences of young people across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The research aims to provide public health workers with more information and insight into the nature of co-consumption. Such information might help the formation of more effective public health interventions that acknowledge the particular challenges which arise from the interplay of cigarette and cannabis use.

This research is supervised by Dr Liz Twigg and Dr Julia Brown.