Dr Beth Nichol

I am a Research Fellow at Northumbria University, holding a Fellowship from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Three Schools’ Prevention programme. I focus on pragmatic and applied research to drive real-world impact through collaborating with partners in policy and practice. I have a background in Health Psychology and am most interested in understanding how complex interventions work, so that they can be optimised to improve public health and wellbeing. I also work part-time at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Behavioural and Social Sciences, which facilitates collaboration with policy partners.

My current research interests are around driving primary prevention (e.g. through boosting cervical screening and implementing Making Every Contact Count), utilising voluntary and community settings to improve population health and wellbeing, encouraging equitable volunteering, and exploring public acceptability of novel interventions.

I am experienced in systematic and umbrella review methodologies, qualitative and mixed methods approaches, and applying behavioural science theory. More recently, I have become passionate about realist thinking and applying realist evaluation and synthesis to evaluate complex interventions and gain shared learning across interventions. I have experience in undergraduate teaching and supervision and am interested in supervising postgraduate research.

I am a member of the Newcastle MECC research group, the European Health Psychology Society, and a full member of the British Psychological Society.