Communities, Young People and Family Lives

The Communities, Young People and Family Lives Research Unit is led by Professor Rebecca O’Connell. It is a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with research interests broadly addressing aspects of family lives, health and well-being across the life-course.

Unit staff

Professor Rebecca O'Connell

Professor Daksha Trivedi

Professor Brian Littlechild

Professor Shula Ramon

Our activities fall into the following areas:

Food, Eating and Inequalities
- Social, cultural and economic determinants of food and eating
- Food and drink practices among secondary school aged children and their families
- Food security and malnutrition in later life
- Food poverty and foodbanks
- Atypical feeding and eating behaviours in infants and children with genetic and neurological conditions
- The contribution of meals on wheels to older people's food security and public health
Maternal, child and family healthcare
- Perinatal women in prison
- Women involved in criminal justice settings
- Mothers in prison compulsorily separated from their babies
- Pregnancy After Stillbirth
- Young fathers in prison
- Co-production with lived experience teams
Health, care and experience of underserved populations
- Mental health in ethnically diverse communities and Neurodivergent populations
- Preventing internet addiction in young to improve mental health and well-being (EU Horizon European study)
- Exploring the value of mental health service users in mental health research: a participatory research approach
- BIMA study- Bowel cancer screening intervention in the Muslim community
- Engaging South Asian women in breast cancer care
- COVID-19 Vaccine hesitancy in young people and their parents in Black African & Caribbean community
- COVID-19 vaccine uptake in children and young people: a systematic review
- Relational approaches for intimate partner violence: narrative review, Norwegian Financial Mechanism/ Polish Institute of Justice
- Research on equality and diversity in the work of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales
- Enhancing research capacity in adult social care and social work in the East of England: testing the feasibility of Research in Practice Teams (The SCRiPT study)
- Social work in war torn contexts, including older people and disabled people.
- Shared decision making in mental health and intellectual disability
- Domestic violence – victims’ perspective and media representation
- Caregivers’ experience of looking after relatives with physical and mental ill health