Staff Profile
Dr Kate Gibson
Lecturer in Social Science
- Email: kate.gibson2@ncl.ac.uk
- Address: Population Health Sciences Institute
Newcastle University
Newcastle Biomedical Research Building
Health Innovation Neighbourhood (HIN)
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 5PL
Kate is a lecturer in social science in the Population Health Sciences Institute. Her core discipline is sociology and she is broadly interested social inequalities. She utilises a range of approaches and methods to explore people's everyday experiences of care, ageing, health and wellbeing. She has a particular interest in ethnographic methods and using Bourdieusian social theory as lens to explore the relationship between care, ageing and inequalities.
Kate is involved in a range of applied health research, working with interdisciplinary teams. She has researched on the topics of ageing in place, classed food dispositions, social and health inequalities, and social prescribing. Her current and long-term interests are in the health and wellbeing of older people, care, ageing in place, everyday experiences of food and eating and addressing health and social inequalities.
Qualifications
PhD Sociology, 2018, Feeding the Middle Classes: taste, classed identity and domestic food practices.
MA Sociology and Social Research, 2014
BSc Hons Sociology, 1998
Intersecting social relations of care: An ethnographic and interview study with South Asian people ageing in place with dementia, NIHR Three School’s Dementia Research programme. May 2024-July 2026 £375,095, Principal Investigator
This study utilises qualitative and ethnographic methods to explore how dementia care is experienced and accessed in South Asian communities in Newcastle, Nottingham, and Birmingham. Using the lens of intersectionality, the study will focus on the ways in which dementia care experiences of South Asian people living at home with dementia are crosscut by factors such as class, gender, and age.
Ageing in Place with dementia: contextual scoping of under-served communities in the North East of England, NIHR Three School’s Dementia Career Development Award. 2023-2024 £26,525, Principal Investigator
This award was to undertake community consultation and engagement activities with key stakeholders linked to underserved groups in the North East and to pursue opportunities for dementia-related research.
Homes for Living (qualitative evaluation), UKRI Innovate UK. 2022-2024, £187,727. Co-Investigator (Principal Investigator, Dr Andrew Kingston, Newcastle University)
This qualitative evaluation of EON’s Homes for Living programme, explored the implementation of technological, social, and self-help innovations provided by EON for older people.
Ageing in Place successfully: exploring factors which facilitate and hinder independent living with age, Legal and General Group PLC, 2021-2026, £769,644 (Principal Investigator, Professor Louise Robinson, Newcastle University)
This study is part of an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral research programme hosted by the Advanced Care Research Centre at Edinburgh University aiming to advance our understanding of population ageing. Based on longitudinal research, the study explores how people in later life negotiate formal and informal health and social care provision within, and outside, of their home.
SPRING_NE Impact of a community based social prescribing intervention on people with Type 2 Diabetes in an ethnically diverse area of high socio-economic deprivation', NIHR Public Health Research Grant, 2018-2021, £570,000. (Principal Investigator, Professor Suzanne Moffatt, Newcastle University)
As part of a multi-methods evaluation of a social prescribing intervention delivered to people living in an ethnically diverse area of Newcastle with high indicators of deprivation. Kate undertook a 20-month ethnography, exploring how the intervention embedded with local contexts, the lived experiences of service users and the social relations shaping their engagement.
Feeding the Middle Classes: Taste, classed identity and domestic food practices, ESRC Doctoral Scholarship, 2014-2018, £62,000
Focusing on middle-class domestic food practices, Kate engaged in a critical dialogue with Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital, practice, and field to trace how middle-class food dispositions are embodied and intergenerationally reproduced across the life course. Based on research with 27 participants, the thesis presents findings generated from semi-structured interviews, food biographies, photo elicitation, and domestic ‘go-alongs’.
Understanding Everyday Participation: Articulating Cultural Values, AHRC Connected Communities Large Grant, 2012-2018, £1.5 million. (Principal Investigator, Professor Andrew Miles, Manchester University)
A multi-methods study aiming to understand community formation and capacity through local practices of participation, Kate conducted longitudinal qualitative research with residents in Gateshead. Interviews explored everyday activities, cultural tastes, participation, and understandings in the context of life histories, relationships, and identities.
Kate welcomes enquiries from potential collaborators or prospective students interested in any of the topics noted above.
Kate is committed to providing supportive teaching which builds capacity and has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2024. She teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, supporting students from both social science and clinical backgrounds.
Current Teaching
BSc Biomedical Sciences and Master of Dietetics
- Module lead for Health and Illness: Professional and Societal Perspectives (BMS3015)
- Dissertation supervisor
Master of Public Health/MSc Public Health and Health Service Research/MSc Global Public Health
- Module instructor for Fundamentals of Research (HSC8001)
- Dissertation Supervisor
BSc Psychology
- Dissertation Supervisor
- Personal Tutor
Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)
- Guest lecturer (Ageing and Society)
Current PhD Supervision
- Sarah Dickson: A critical examination of the effects of solid-organ transplantation on paid employment: views of transplant recipients and formal support services (NIHR funded)
- Chao Dong: PUBLIC: Perceptions of patients and the public regarding Use of Biobanking, Large datasets and artificial Intelligence in Clinical research (NIHR funded)
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Articles
- Pollard TM, Gibson K, Tupper E, McGuire L, Griffith B, Jeffries J. Delivering green social prescribing: An ethnographic exploration of the place of walking and gardening groups in a social prescribing intervention. Social Science & Medicine 2025, 380, 118184.
- Dickson S, Gibson K, Cheraghi M, Kingston A, Brittain K. ‘They don’t squeal, ‘Disabled’.’: using qualitative interviews to explore user perceptions of ‘stylish’ grab rails intended to promote healthy ageing in place in England. BMJ Open 2025, 15(3), e093698.
- Gibson K, Robinson L, Bains M, Samsi K, Cîrstea A, Brittain K. Intersecting social relations of care: a protocol for an ethnographic and interview study with South Asian people ageing in place with dementia. BMJ Open 2024, 14(12), e092946.
- Gibson K, Brittain K, McLellan E, Kingston A, Wilkinson H, Robinson L. ‘It’s where I belong’: what does it mean to age in place from the perspective of people aged 80 and above? A longitudinal qualitative study (wave one). BMC Geriatrics 2024, 24(1), 524.
- Gibson K, Kingston A, McLellan E, Robinson L, Brittain K. "Successful" ageing in later older age: a sociology of class and ageing in place. Social Science & Medicine 2024, 358, 117258.
- Pollard T, Gibson K, Griffith B, Jeffries J, Moffatt S. The implementation and impact of a social prescribing intervention: an ethnographic exploration. British Journal of General Practice 2023, 73(735), e789-e797.
- Gibson K, Brittain K. The domestication of remote monitoring: The materialisation of care?. Journal of Aging Studies 2023, 67, 101168.
- Moffatt S, Wildman J, Pollard TM, Gibson K, Wildman JM, O'Brien N, Griffith B, Morris S, Moloney E, Jeffries J, Pearce M, Mohammed W. Impact of a social prescribing intervention in North East England on adults with type 2 diabetes: the SPRING_NE multimethod study. Public Health Research 2023, 11(2).
- Griffith B, Pollard T, Gibson K, Jeffries J, Moffatt S. Constituting link working through choice and care: An ethnographic account of front-line social prescribing. Sociology of Health and Illness 2023, 45(2), 279-297.
- Morris SL, Gibson K, Wildman JM, Griffith B, Moffat S, Pollard TM. Social prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of service providers’ and clients’ experiences. BMC Health Services Research 2022, 22, 258.
- Morris SL, Wildman JM, Gibson K, Moffatt S, Pollard T. Managing disruption at a distance: Unequal experiences of people living with long-term conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Science and Medicine 2022, 302, 114963.
- Wildman JM, Morris S, Pollard T, Gibson K, Moffatt S. “I wouldn't survive it, as simple as that”: Syndemic vulnerability among people living with chronic non-communicable disease during the COVID-19 pandemic. SSM - Qualitative Research in Health 2022, 2, 100032.
- Gibson K, Moffatt S, Pollard TM. ‘He called me out of the blue’: An ethnographic exploration of contrasting temporalities in a social prescribing intervention. Sociology of Health and Illness 2022, 44(7), 1149-1166.
- Gibson K, Pollard TM, Moffatt S. Social prescribing and classed inequality: A journey of upward health mobility?. Social Science and Medicine 2021, 280, 114037.
- Gibson K, Pollard T, Moffatt S. OP83 Social prescribing and classed inequalities in health: exploring a complex relationship using ethnographic methods’. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2020, 74(1).
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Authored Book
- Gibson K. Feeding The Middle Classes: Taste, Class and Domestic Food Practices. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2023.