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Staff Profile

Dr Steph Morris

Research Associate

Background

I am a Research Associate in the Population Health Sciences Institute, as part of the Health Inequalities theme. I work part-time on the qualitative work package of the large scale 5-year National Institute for Health Research study entitled, Evaluation of the health impacts of Universal Credit: a mixed methods study. I am conducting qualitative longitudinal interviews and photo-elicitation to understand how claiming and living on Universal Credit affects people's health and wellbeing. This work brings together my interests in mental health, visual methods and a desire to do impactful policy changing research. 

I am a qualitative researcher and my background is in medical anthropology. I studied at Durham University, where I completed my PhD in 2017. Since then, I have been utilising my ethnographic skills within applied health research, working with various teams developing and evaluating a range of complex interventions, policies and services, including: walking groups; medicine reviews ; environmental interventions to promote active school travel; social prescribing; and most recently Universal Credit.

 


Research
My continual research interests lie in understanding people's lived experiences of how policies and interventions are experienced in daily life and affect health and wellbeing. Since working in applied health research, I've gained a passion for tackling health inequalities; doing meaningful co-production; and using creative ethnographic and longitudinal approaches to qualitative research.


My publications are available here. 


Teaching

PhD Students:

Laura McGuire, Durham University, Community Gardening and Social Prescription: An Ethnographic Exploration

Publications