Staff Profile

I currently work as a Research Associate within the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University. I’m experienced in conducting health research using a range of quantitative research methods. My current role is to lead and develop research using complex cohort data, large-scale electronic health records and administrative data to investigate issues of health inequality.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy 2022, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
• Master of Science Research Methods in Psychological Science, 2018, University of Glasgow, UK
• Bachelor of Science Applied Psychology, Southern Medical University, China

Research Interests

• Health Inequality
• Social Determinants of Health
• Suicidal Behaviour
• Mental Health

• Wu KCC, Cai Z, Chang Q, Chang SS, Yip PSF, Chen YY. Criminalisation of suicide and suicide rates: An ecological study of 171 countries in the world. BMJ Open 2022, 12(2), e049425.
• Chen YY, Cai Z, Chang Q, Canetto SS, Yip PSF. Caregiving as suicide-prevention: An ecological 20-country study of the association between men’s family carework, unemployment, and suicide. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 2021, 56, 2185-2198.
• Cai Z, Chen M, Ye P, Yip PSF. Socio-Economic Determinants of Suicide Rates in Transforming China: A spatial-temporal analysis from 1990 to 2015. The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific 2022, 19, 100341.
• Cai Z, Chang Q, Yip PSF, Conner A, Azrael D, Miller M. The contribution of method choice to gender disparity in suicide mortality: A population-based study in Hong Kong and the United States of America. Journal of Affective Disorders 2021, 294, 17-23.
• Cai Z, Junus A, Chang Q, Yip PSF. The lethality of suicide methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders 2021, 300, 121-129.
• Cai Z, Canetto SS, Chang Q, Yip PSF. Women's suicide in low-, middle-, and high-income countries: Do laws discriminating against women matter?. Social Science & Medicine 2021, 282, 114035.
• Cai Z, Chang Q, Yip PSF. A scientometric analysis of suicide research: 1990–2018. Journal of Affective Disorders 2020, 266, 356-365.
• Chang Q, Peng C, Guo Y, Cai Z, Yip PSF. Mechanisms connecting objective and subjective poverty to mental health: Serial mediation roles of negative life events and social support. Social Science & Medicine 2020, 265, 113308.
• Li F, Jia H, Cai Z, Liu S, Lu X, Zeng X, Yip PSF. Putting the blame on others in suicide notes from Shanghai and Wuhan, China. Crisis 2020, 41(6), 469-474.
• Cai Z, Hahn AC, Zhang W, Holzleitner IJ, Lee AJ, DeBruine LM, Jones BC. No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women. Evolution and Human Behavior 2019, 40(2), 156-159.
• Zhang W, Hahn AC, Cai Z, Lee AJ, Holzleitner IJ, DeBruine LM, Jones BC. No evidence that facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is associated with women's sexual desire. PLoS ONE 2018, 13(7), e0200308.