Alison Booth
Honorary Fellow

Profile

Biography

Alison joined the York Trials Unit (YTU) in October 2015. She has experience in the design and conduct of a range of research methods, in particular systematic reviews, RCTs, and methodological studies. She has a background in radiography, clinical governance and research ethics. Alison is a Senior Research Fellow in YTU and also an Advisor and Impact Lead for the NIHR Research Support Service delivered by the University of York and partners. Her particular interests are in knowledge translation, knowledge exchange, research impact and transparency in research reporting.

• PhD
• MSc
• DCR(R)

Departmental roles

• Health Sciences Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Lead (July 2021 - ongoing)
• Representative on the Contract Researchers’ Forum - Dec 2018 - Nov 2020
• Health Sciences Research Governance Committee, Dec 2010 - Dec 2015

Research

Overview

Alison’s broad research interests include review methods, biases in systematic reviews, improving the quality of reporting of research, efficient and effective trial design and the targeted dissemination of evidence as part of a pathway to impact.

Projects

• Gentle Years Yoga: Individually randomised controlled, two arm, pragmatic, multi-centre trial to determine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of an adapted yoga programme for older adults with multimorbidity
• Gateway: Randomised control trial, with economic and qualitative evaluations examining the effectiveness of an out of court community based intervention for improving the health and well-being for youth offenders aged 18-24, victim satisfaction and reducing reoffending.
• INTERACT - A cluster RCT of Intensive Interaction to support the communication abilities of children and young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD)
• TIDE - An RCT investigating whether there are effective alternatives to nasal mupirocin for early decolonisation of MRSA amongst adult hospital in-patients

Completed projects

• Martin House Research Centre
• Co-production of policing evidence, research and training: focus mental health: funded by the College of Policing, Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Home Office
• HS&DR - 12/5002/18: Effects of a demand led knowledge translation service on the uptake and use of research evidence by NHS commissioners compared with lower intensity untargeted alternatives 
• Orthotic management of instability of the knee related to neuromuscular and central nervous system disorders: systematic review, qualitative study, survey and costing analysis if you would like to read the Orthotics for knee instability blog please follow this link: http://kneeorthotics.blogspot.co.uk/
• PRESTO
• The QIST trial assessed the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of a Quality Improvement Collaborative for introducing service improvements at scale in the NHS. Working with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, we looked specifically at improving outcomes in patients undergoing elective total hip and knee replacements. 

   

Research group(s)

• Trials and Statistics

Supervision

Alison is able to supervise Masters dissertations and PhD theses. Specific areas of interest include systematic reviews, health interventions and methodological research related to the conduct and reporting of research.

Completed supervision:

• Laura Clark: PhD by Publication: Allocation concealment in randomised controlled trials: improving the implementation, reporting and developing methods to detect and prevent selection bias

Publications

Full publications list

• Alison Booth's publications

External activities

Memberships

• Member of the NIHR Research on Research Advisory Group. July 2020 – on-going
• Member of the LATITUDES Network, (Library of Assessment Tools and InsTruments Used to assess Data validity in Evidence Synthesis) Advisory Board.  January 2014 – on-going
• Chairman, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Research and Governance Group, York (member from 2010, Chairman 2012 - 2016)
• Chairman, York National Research Ethics Committee, York Hospitals NHS Trust, York (member from 2002, Chairman from 2009 - 2012)

Editorial duties

• Systematic Review Methodology Editor on the British Journal of Radiology Editorial Board (2016 – ongoing)

Invited talks and conferences

• A tale of two papers (and lots of searches), InterTASC Information Specialists' Sub-Group (ISSG) Meeting 28 November 2019, University of York
• Protocol registration on PROSPERO, seminar on systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies, Aarhus, Denmark 17-18 November 2015 
• PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews: an expanding resource, 3rd International Symposium on Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Laboratory Animal Studies, Washington DC, 13-14 November 2014 
• Registries of experiments and of systematic review, 2nd International Symposium on Systematic Reviews in Laboratory Animal Science, Edinburgh, 7-8 March 2013
• PROSPERO: putting the optimum in to get the optimum out, The Department for Evidence Based Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at the Danube University Krems, Austria, December 2012, Webinar