Caroline has been a researcher across a variety of policy areas, including public health, mental health, employment, education, and childcare. With experience across the range of research methodologies, she favours qualitative approaches, and is interested in participatory methods.
Caroline recently conducted a review of community-based initiatives in support of the mental health of older adults at times of psychosocial stress; and contributed to a participatory review of community involvement in placed-based decision-making. Caroline is also co-leading a realist informed case study (in this region) for a national project on approaches by local authorities to improving public health and reducing inequalities in the context of austerity. In her role as a Prince of Wales Global Sustainability Fellow, Caroline is examining how food retailers can contribute to community wellbeing, with particular focus on tackling disadvantage and/or building resilience in disadvantaged communities. Her study combines a scoping review, theory development, primary data collection through case studies and participatory co-design of community-engaged actions.
Other recent projects include: developing age-friendly rural communities; reviewing the potential for improving public health; supporting local commissioners in developing evaluation frameworks for a healthy communities fund; increased attention to ethnicity and migration within public health; engaging communities in thinking about data risk; investigating peer support approaches to social care for older prisoners; and evaluating a creative participatory approach to research with young people attending Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
