About me

I am a senior lecturer in finance in the Queen's Management School in Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland and director of the Queen's University Centre for Health Research at the Management School (CHaRMS).

I am currently External Examiner for the Irish Management Institute/University College Cork MSc in Leadership in Healthcare.

Current research projects include

Work disability and the legacy of the Northern Irish Troubles

In Northern Ireland, we have the highest disability claimant rate in the UK and the reasons for this are poorly understood, although it has been variously attributed in policy circles to worse health, worse unemployment hidden as work disablement, the physical and mental health consequences of the recent 30-year civil war known locally as ‘the Troubles’, or to a claimant culture with greater understanding of how to navigate the benefit system from knowledge of entitlement, application, interview, inspection through to eventual successful receipt. Credible empirical evidence that can help us quantify the role of these and other factors, however, is currently lacking. Providing such evidence is the aim of this study

Cost effectiveness of stratified medicine approaches to colorectal cancer

The implementation of stratified medicine approaches in screening to guide treatment of colorectal cancer has the potential to increase efficacy and decrease costs by differentiating between responders and non-responders prior to therapy. This project will involve systematic reviews of other studies as well as evaluation using Markov modelling approaches.

Time discounting as a mediator of the relationship between financial stress and health

Stress impedes cognitive function, leading to impulsive decision-making, engagement in unhealthy coping behaviours including overeating and smoking and an increased likelihood of poor health. This paper uses mediation analysis to investigate changes in time discounting as mediators of the relationship between financial stress and health, using longitudinal data from the Dutch National Bank Household Survey from 1993-2015.