Lucy Yardley

Last updated

Lucy Yardley
Born (1961-02-02) 2 February 1961 (age 62)
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Southampton
Known forLifeGuide, Person-centred Approach
Scientific career
FieldsHealth Psychology, Behaviour change, digital health
Institutions University of Bristol, University of Southampton

Lucy Yardley OBE CPsychol FBPsS (born 2 February 1961) is a British psychologist and professor of health psychology based at both the University of Bristol (since 2018) and University of Southampton (since 1999). She is a senior investigator at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and has a continuing role at the University of Southampton as Director of the LifeGuide Research Programme, [1] and the Behavioural Science theme of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Yardley studied psychology for her BSc at the University of Southampton, and during her undergraduate days formed links with the local community which resulted in her decision to stay in the area to progress her further training. A desire to help people led her to the field of audiology, and she was awarded an MRC studentship to pursue an MSc in the then-emerging field of audiological science, again at the University of Southampton. After completing her MSc in 1986, she worked as an audiologist at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research and then at the Royal South Hants Hospital. Fitting hearing aids and carrying out hearing tests over a period of 18 months gave her valuable first-hand experience of practising as a healthcare professional. Lucy then took up an appointment as a research demonstrator in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southampton, which gave her the opportunity to begin a PhD at the interface of audiology and psychology. Her research involved looking at psycho-physiological aspects of vestibular function and dysfunction. During her studies she also lectured at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, but subsequently was invited to take up a non-clinical research position in the MRC Human Movement and Balance Unit at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London (now part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) where she completed her PhD and embarked on her career as an academic psychologist, specialising in psychological aspects of vestibular (dys)function. Her first academic post was a lectureship at UCL – still commuting from her home in Southampton. [3] She then became a senior lecturer in Psychology as Applied to Medicine at UCL, before returning to the University of Southampton as a reader and then professor of health psychology [4] ). She also held a professorship at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care and Health Sciences, University of Oxford. [5] Lucy now divides her time between her position at the University of Southampton and as professor of health psychology in the School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol [6] ). [2]

Research and career

Lucy Yardley has an international reputation for developing and evaluating health behaviour change and self-care interventions, with a particular focus on internet-based interventions. [2] She specializes in using mixed and qualitative research methods. [2] She developed the person-based approach’ to intervention development with her research group, which draws together qualitative research and user-centred design methodology to develop a deep understanding of the views and experiences of potential users and the contexts in which they live. [7] In 2008 she was funded by the ESRC to develop ‘LifeGuide’: a piece of open software designed for developing web-based interventions. [8] She then led the EPSRC-funded ‘UBhave’ programme to develop software for creating interventions for mobile phones, known as the ‘LifeGuide Toolbox’. [1]

Lucy Yardley has led MSc and PhD programmes in Health Psychology, served as Head of the School of Psychology for 3 years, and supervised over 20 PhD students. [8] Her professional roles have included editor-in chief of Psychology and Health (official journal of the European Health Psychology Society), associate editor for the British Journal of Health Psychology and consulting editor for the journals Social Theory and Health, and Health. [2] She has also been a core member of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) public health committee (2013 to 2016), [9] topic expert member for other NICE committees, and a member of research funding panels for the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Counsel and medical charities. [8]

Awards and recognition

She was awarded the title of Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2010, [2] and in 2018 she was elected as a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. [10] She has numerous highly cited publications and has won major funding awards as principal investigator and co-investigator across various funding bodies (ESRC, EPSRC, NIHR, MRC, ESRC, EC, HTA, Wellcome Trust, other medical charities). [2]

Yardley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to the Covid-19 response. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical Research Council (United Kingdom)</span> National medical research agency

The Medical Research Council (MRC) is responsible for co-coordinating and funding medical research in the United Kingdom. It is part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), which came into operation 1 April 2018, and brings together the UK's seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England. UK Research and Innovation is answerable to, although politically independent from, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. EPSRC research areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence and computer science, but exclude particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy. Since 2018 it has been part of UK Research and Innovation, which is funded through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) is a health services research centre based at the University of York, England. CRD was established in January 1994, and aims to provide research-based information for evidence-based medicine. CRD carries out systematic reviews and meta-analyses of healthcare interventions, and disseminates the results of research to decision-makers in the NHS.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides funding and support for research and training in the social sciences. It is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Christina Nobre</span> Brazilian neuroscientist (born 1963)

Anna Christina Nobre FBA, MAE, fNASc is a Brazilian and British cognitive neuroscientist working at the University of Oxford in England.

Elena Lieven is a British psychology and linguistics researcher and educator. She was a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology in Leipzig, Germany. She is also a professor in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Manchester where she is Director of its Child Study Centre and leads the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Edinburgh School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences</span>

The University of Edinburgh School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences (PPLS) is a school within the College of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. The School was formed in 2002 as a result of administrative restructuring, when several departments of what was then the Faculty of Arts were brought together. The University of Edinburgh's academic foundation is based on three Colleges containing a total of 22 Schools; among these is the School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences (PPLS).

Karen Henwood is a British social psychologist and Professor of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, and an expert on identity and risk, particularly socio-cultural and environmental change. Her research in recent years includes the ESRC project "Timescapes" on relationships and identities through the life course, and a project on men as fathers, as well as research on energy use, sustainable development, climate change policy and on living with nuclear risk. She was editor-in-chief of Qualitative Research from 2016 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison Noble</span> Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Julia Alison Noble is Technikos professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and Associate Head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at the university. As of 2017 she is chief technology officer (CTO) of Intelligent Ultrasound Limited an Oxford University spin-off in medical imaging which she cofounded. She was director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME) from 2012 to 2016.

Sharon Jayne Peacock is a British microbiologist who is Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge.

Jane Cecelia Falkingham is a Professor of Demography and International Social Policy at the University of Southampton. She is also Vice-President at the University of Southampton, and Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Principal Investigator of ESRC Connecting Generations. She is Chair of Population Europe. She was President of the European Association of Population Studies (EAPS) between 2018 and 2020, and was President of the British Society for Population Studies between 2015 and 2017.

Deborah A. Lawlor is a British epidemiologist and professor at the University of Bristol, where she is the deputy director of the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit. She is also a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Her main areas of research are perinatal, reproductive and cardio-metabolic health. Lawlor was awarded a CBE in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to social and community medicine research.

Kate Tilling is a British statistician who specialises in developing and applying statistical methods to overcome problems encountered in epidemiological research. Tilling has been a professor in medical statistics. in population health sciences within Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, since 2011. She joined the University of Bristol in 2002 as a Senior Lecturer, following nine years as a lecturer at King's College London.

Elizabeth Murray was a British general practitioner and professor of e-health and primary care at University College London. In 2003 she established the eHealth Unit at UCL where she was co-director, and she was also Deputy Director of the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering.

Rosalind Raine is a British applied health research scientist, public medicine doctor, professor of health care evaluation and the founding head of the Department of Applied Health Research at University College London (UCL).

Jane Sandall is professor of social science and women's health at the Women's Health Academic Centre of King's College London. Sandall leads the Maternal Health Services and Policy Research Group in King's Health Partners Women’s Health Academic Centre and is also a lead for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) South London Applied Research Collaboration. She has authored several Cochrane reviews on midwife-led settings and hundreds of peer-reviewed papers. Her contribution to midwifery and women's health was awarded with an CBE. She also received an honorary doctorate in health sciences from the University of Technology Sydney in 2014.

Dawnette Ethilda Edge is a British medical researcher who is a Professor of Mental Health and Inclusivity at the University of Manchester. Her research investigates racial inequalities in mental health, including the origins of the overdiagnosis of schizophrenia in British African-Caribbean people.

Jill Elizabeth Maben OBE is a British nurse and academic. She is currently professor of health services research and nursing at the University of Surrey and visiting professor of nursing at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia.

Katherine Brown is the professor of behaviour change in health in the Department of Psychology, Sports and Geography at the University of Hertfordshire.

Jean Adams is an epidemiologist and Professor of Dietary Public Health at the MRC Epidemiology Unit based at the School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge.

References

  1. 1 2 "The LifeGuide Research Programme". Life Guide Online. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Lucy Yardley University of Bristol". University of Bristol. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  3. "Yardley at ISVR". Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. Retrieved 6 March 2019.[ dead link ]
  4. "Lucy Yardley University of Southampton, UK". Sage Publishing. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  5. "lucy-yardley, University of Oxford". University of Oxford. Retrieved 6 March 2019.[ dead link ]
  6. "Professor Lucy Yardley OBE". University of Southampton. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  7. "The Person-Based Approach (PBA)". LifeGuide Online. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  8. 1 2 3 "lucy-yardley/overview". University of Bristol. Retrieved 24 May 2019.[ dead link ]
  9. "NICE" . Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  10. "bps.org.uk/september-2018". The British Psychological Society. Retrieved 6 March 2019.[ dead link ]
  11. "No. 63142". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 2020. p. B67.