Staff Profile

I have a background as a practitioner and manager within criminal justice, primary care, substance use and homelessness service settings. Advanced Motivational Interviewing (MI) practitioner, nationwide training design and delivery in MI, solution focused approaches, drug and alcohol use, harm reduction, drug use and HIV, and co-design and co-delivery of training with public contributors for NHS England on intersectionality in primary care.

Currently working both as a research associate (interviewing people at end-of-life), and primary care-based social prescriber in the North East of England.

Research interests: marginalisation (and thus inclusion), drug and alcohol use & treatment, equity in design of and access to research studies and health services, stigma, trauma, social (as opposed to just economic) inequity, co-production, participatory and community-generated research, connecting communities.

https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0001-5696-3883

• Articles

  • Adley M, Yolles M, O'Donnell A, Scott S. Inside/Outside: Descriptive phenomenological methods and the macro/micro gap. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2026, 26, 1-6.
  • Adley M, Yolles M, Scott S, O'Donnell A. From Abstract to Concrete: Phenomenological relationality, spaces between, and a unified visual framework. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2026, 254, 1-11.
  • Whitehead IO, Adley M, Thompson A, Mordue P, O'Donnell A, Hanratty B. ‘Obviously, you can’t outright ask’: what are the barriers and facilitators to discussion of spiritual health within social prescribing? A study using semi-structured interviews. BMC Primary Care 2026, 27, 10.
  • Adley M, O'Donnell A, Scott S. The majority is the priority: a qualitative, intersectional perspective on LGBTQ+ marginalisation within health and social care service pathways in North East England. Critical Public Health 2025, 35(1), 2547497.
  • Adley M, ODonnell A, Scott S. How LGBTQ + adults’ experiences of multiple disadvantage impact upon their health and social care service pathways in the UK & Ireland: a scoping review. BMC Health Services Research 2025, 25, 244.
  • Davies LE, Sinclair DR, Osei A, Kingston A, Adley M, Whitehead O, Hanratty B. Are participants with disability referred for social prescribing? Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Journal of Public Health 2025, Epub ahead of print.
  • Adley M, Thompson A, Mordue P, O'Donnell A, Hanratty B, Whitehead IO. ‘This is the core of what we do’: a qualitative study of social prescribers’ attitudes towards spiritual health training and their future training needs. BMC Primary Care 2025, 26(1), 345.
  • Adley M, Jones G, Measham F. Jump-starting the conversation about harm reduction: making sense of drug effects. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 2023, 30(4), 347-360.
  • Adley M, Atkinson AM, Sumnall HR. Including the multiply excluded: a mixed methods study exploring intragroup stigma towards people who use synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 2023, 30(3), 312-324.
  • Adley M, Alderson H, Jackson K, McGovern W, Spencer L, Addison M, O'Donnell A. Ethical and practical considerations for including marginalised groups in quantitative survey research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 2023, 27(5), 559-574.
  • Adams EA, Spencer L, Addison M, McGovern W, Alderson H, Adley M, McGovern R, Gilvarry E, Kaner E, O'Donnell A. Substance Use, Health, and Adverse Life Events amongst Amphetamine-Type Stimulant Users in North East England: A Cross-Sectional Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2022, 19(12), 6996.