My research interests are in behaviour change with a particular focus on alcohol and smoking. My research focuses both on the use of digital technologies to support behaviour change and the population level influences on these behaviours. A major focus is on digital interventions to reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. As part of my research, I led the development and evaluation of a theory- and evidence-based smartphone application – Drink Less – to reduce alcohol consumption. The Drink Less app is one of the leading alcohol reduction apps in the UK with over 90,000 unique users and an average 4.5 star rating in the Apple App Store. I also conduct research to provide insights into population-wide influences on smoking and smoking cessation. For example: understanding how smoker characteristics in England have changed over the last 10 years as smoking prevalence has fallen.  

I was awarded a NIHR Advanced Fellowship in 2023 which will focus on alcohol harm reduction among increasing and higher risk drinkers in the UK. For this, I will use a mixed-methods approach including qualitative focus groups and causal inference methodology.

I have regularly engaged with Public Health England/Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and NICE, and made a sustained contribution to the media through invited interviews.

Throughout my research, I follow the principles of Open Science, such as sharing anonymised datasets, relevant materials, source code, data and results through online repositories.