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Staff Profile

Dr Angela Wearn

NIHR Research Fellow

Background

Angela is a member of the Population Health Sciences Institute and works within the Public Health and Health Inequalities theme. She is a Research Fellow in Public Involvement and Community Engagement for the NIHR's Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria and an Associate Member of Fuse, affiliated to both the Health Inequalities and Behaviour Change themes.


Within her current role, Angela aims to strengthen meaningful, equitable community involvement in both research and service design. Her work centres on testing and refining approaches to meaningful and diverse public partnerships, evaluating involvement and understanding how systems can embed inclusive practice in sustainable and impactful ways. She works alongside traditionally marginalised and seldom-heard communities and is experienced in coproduction and participatory methods.


Angela leads on Patient Involvement and Community Engagement for the North East and North Cumbria Deep End Network, is NIHR partner for the NENC Integrated Care Board's Research Engagement Network and contributes to a number of regional and national working groups focused on improving the quality, equity and impact of involvement in health and social care research.


Angela is also a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, specialising in Health Psychology, with a focus on the health and wellbeing of marginalised women, prevention and the development and evaluation of complex health interventions. Angela completed her PhD at Northumbria University which explored the development of intervention strategies to address socioeconomic inequalities in cervical screening participation.

Research


Research Interests

  • Women's health and wellbeing across the life course
  • Inclusion of seldom-heard groups (particularly those living in areas of high deprivation, neurodivergent groups and young people).
  • Co-production and participatory methods
  • Prevention
  • Development and evaluation of complex interventions
  • Systems-level approaches to embedding inclusive practice

 

Recent grants


  • Increasing equitable access to women's healthcare services in Sunderland: community insights and evaluation of a Women's Health Hub pilot, 2024-2026, £40,016 (PI)
  • Developing a North East and North Cumbria Children and Young People’s Research Partnership. NIHR Programme Development Grant. 2024-2026, £149,905 (CI)
  • Mental health IN the Deep EnD (MINDED) extension. Clinical Research Network North East and North Cumbria, Targeting Health Needs Award. 2023-2024, £29,103 (Co-I)
  • Sustaining Diversity and Inclusion in Children and Young People’s Mental Health Research: Development of a VCSE-Research Partnership Network. NHS England, Research Engagement Network Programme. 2023-2024. £130,000
  • Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in Children and Young People’s Mental Health Research. NHS England, Research Engagement Network Development Programme. 2022-2023. £99,945
  • Co-designing and evaluating novel recruitment strategies to achieve more equitable mental health research participation. NIHR NETSCC. 2022-2026. £277,733 (Co-I)
  • Developing inclusive school environments: Optimising the provision of staff training to support positive mental health in autistic young people. NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria, 2022-2024. £24,662 (PI)
  • NIHR NENC ARC Mental Health Capacity and Capability: Additional infrastructure funding to support mental health research. 2021-2024, £750,212
  • Mental health IN the Deep EnD (MINDED) pilot evaluation: embedding a clinical psychologist in primary care to improve mental health care for patients living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities within the North East & North Cumbria (2022-2023). NIHR Three Schools Mental Health Evaluation Programme. £151,248 (Co-I)
  • Supporting the NHS Long Term Plan: An evaluation of the implementation and impact of NHS-funded tobacco dependence services. NIHR Applied Research Collaboration National Priority Areas: Prevention, including behavioural risk factors, 2021-2023. £369,628.87. (Co-I)
  • Supporting access to books and reading to promote health and well-being in disadvantaged groups: realist evaluation of Community Reading Coach provision in six Local Authority areas [The Reading for Wellbeing project]. NIHR ARC, North East and North Cumbria 2020-2023. £96,000. (Co-I)


Teaching

Angela is a Fellow of Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) and has experience teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Angela has previously designed and delivered teaching modules and sessions relating to: 

  • Qualitative research methods and analysis
  • Quantitative research methods and analysis
  • Health Psychology
  • Public Involvement and Community Engagement in research. 


Angela also provides student supervision including:


  • MPH students - Topics include:
  • Exploring the implementation of a Women's Health Hub
  • Understanding social and structural barriers to menopause care access
  • Asylum Seeker and Refugee experiences of accessing NHS primary care services in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage.


  • PhD supervision - Caroline Charlton - Increasing timely cervical screening participation in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage. Funded by NIHR School for Public Health Research (second supervisor). 
Publications