Profile
Biography
Amanda has worked in the UK NHS as a nurse and health visitor, as a senior specialist scientist at the Medical Research Council and as a public health specialist and regional epidemiologist for the post-apartheid government in South Africa. She is currently an ESRC Administrative Data Research Fellow.
She is a mixed methods researcher and medical statistician. She has a PhD in childhood injury epidemiology, and Master of Public Health (MPH), both from the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Health Services Research from the Trent Institute for Health Services Research. She has previously held academic posts at the University of Nottingham and the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch in South Africa
Amanda's research and publications focus on interventions on reproductive and maternal health and how they relate to reproductive and environmental justice. She is a member of SisterSong collective and leads a research group for graduate students, PhDs, post docs, and early career researchers.
Qualifications
- PhD in public health and injury epidemiology - University of Nottingham
- MSc in Health Services Research - Trent Institute for Health Services Research
- Master in Public Health (MPH) - University of Nottingham
- Postgraduate certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) - University of Nottingham
- BA (Hons) in Sociology and Psychology - University of Lancaster
- Registered General Nurse (RGN-postgraduate course) - University of Nottingham
- Registered Health Visitor (RHV) - Nottingham Trent University
- Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education (Public health nursing) - Nottingham Trent University
Departmental roles
- Programme Director MPH (2012-2024)
- Member of Research Governance Committee (2014-2020)
- Member of Dissertation Development Committee (2012-2021)
- Module leader Dissertations (2012-2023)
- Module Leader Global Public Health (2012-2024)
- Deputy Chair Postgraduate Teaching Committee (2016-2018)
Research
Overview
Amanda's research interests are in sexual and reproductive health, safety promotion and wellbeing and injury prevention. She has been specifically working in the areas of intimate partner violence prevention, and reproductive health issues for young people ‘on the move’ and in interventions for improving wellbeing through intervening in the early years.
Recent work on school-based programmes to reduce HIV, STIs and pregnancy
Cochrane review: School-based interventions for preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy in adolescents
The Conversation: Keeping girls at school may reduce teenage pregnancy and STIs – but sex education doesn’t
Projects
- Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of adolescents experiencing multiple displacement in Zimbabwe
- NIHR PHR: Enhancing Social-Emotional Health and Wellbeing in the Early Years: A Community-based Randomised Controlled Trial (and Economic) Evaluation of the Incredible Years Infant & Toddler (0-2) Parenting Programmes
- SCORe Project: using Sonification to COmmunicate health Risk data
- HEIF Funding: Public health knowledge exchange to explore young people's vulnerability and resilience
Research group(s)
Available PhD research projects
Interested PhD candidates with proposals related to sexual and reproductive health, violence and injury prevention, global public health (eg. HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB) are welcome to contact Amanda.
Publications
Selected publications
Report: NICE guideline [NG68]: Sexually transmitted infections: condom distribution schemes, contributing author through the Public Health Advisory Committee, Condom Distribution Schemes
Full publications list
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Contributes to undergraduate midwifery and child health programme teaching
Postgraduate
- Leads MPH programme
- Leads Global Public Health module
- Contributes to Infection and Disease
- Contributes to Qualitative Methods Applied to Health Research
- Dissertation supervisor for Master of Public Health
- Supervision of Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Dr Aisha Akeel: Exploring global empowerment frameworks to improve the health and wellbeing of young people
- Supervision of PhD students:
- Mashael Hobani: Gestational Diabetes in Saudi Arabia (funded by Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health)
- Jenny Loggie: Public health approaches to the prevention of child sexual exploitation (Self funded)
- Xola Potelwa: Determinants of uptake of the HPV vaccination programme in Uganda and the UK (Funded by Sexually Transmitted Infections Research Foundation (STIRF))
- Luis Beltran: The cost and impact of adolescent pregnancy in Mexico (Funded by Consejo Nacional de Cienca y Tecnologia (CONACYT))
Amanda is a mixed methods researcher with expertise in injury prevention, public health and epidemiology. She is willing to supervise projects with a broad focus on sexual and reproductive health and injury prevention. Specific areas of interest include adolescent health, male sexual health, child sexual exploitation, sexual violence and intimate partner violence prevention. Favoured approaches for masters’-level projects are systematic reviews (both quantitative and qualitative), secondary data analysis of datasets (both quantitative and qualitative). She has some ongoing projects in the above subject areas that may suit students who are taking appropriate modules. For those wishing to undertake a PhD, projects can be developed around the above topic areas and a range of methods, including randomised controlled trials, are possible.