Professor Flora Douglas
| Post Nominals | PhD, MPH, PGDip Health Prom, BN |
|---|---|
| Biography | Flora Douglas is a Professor in Public Health who is based in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at RGU. Professor Douglas has a background in public health, public health research and nursing. She is also the Post Graduate Research Degrees Coordinator for the School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Paramedic Practice. Flora contributes to a number of national and local steering and advisory groups concerned with addressing household food insecurity and health in Scotland. Her particular focus is on providing expert input on the evaluation of interventions intended to address food poverty in Scotland. Flora also holds Honorary Lecturer and Research Associate appointments with the University of Aberdeen and the University of Bournemouth. She is also a member of NHS Grampian's Inequalities Action Group. Prior to joining RGU, Flora held two academic posts at the University of Aberdeen (UoA). Latterly, she was a Principal Investigator on the Scottish Government-funded RESAS research programme (administered by the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, UoA) where she held a role as lead public health / social scientist for three years. In this role she was responsible for conceptualising and undertaking policy-orientated research concerned with household food insecurity, health and well-being. In her former role at the UoA, which she held for over a decade, Flora was a lecturer within the Department of Public Health. This post was jointly funded with NHS Grampian and involved close working with senior public health clinical and non-clinical colleagues throughout the period of this appointment on a range of national public health policy and programme intervention issues. In this role, she also variously undertook teaching, degree programme coordination, course coordination, Masters and PhD supervision roles associated with undergraduate and post-graduate teaching programmes delivered within the Institute of Applied Health Sciences (i.e. Health Sciences, Master of Public Health and Health Services Research programmes, MSc Human Nutrition, MB CHB). Flora also contributed to local UK Specialist Public Health Registrar training programmes, and to various CPD activities aimed at NHS Grampian public health staff. Flora also undertook a variety of lead and co-investigator research and evaluation roles in a number of externally-funded public health research and policy evaluation projects. |
| Research Interests | • Health inequalities • Low income and poverty-driven food insecurity and it’s impact on health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on chronic condition management in high income country contexts, i.e. diabetes and obesity. • Maternal and infant food and nutrition security, e.g. understanding the impact of maternal and household food insecurity on parents’ infant and young children feeding intentions and practices, e.g. breast / bottle feeding and weaning. • Health and social care professionals practice and role beliefs in relation to addressing the socio-economic and political determinants of client’s health and health care needs. • Implementation and evaluation of policy interventions in health and social care settings intended to address health inequalities. • Use of participatory action research and visual research methods (such as Photovoice) related to health-related research questions. |