Ana Castro
Research Fellow

Profile

Biography

Ana works as a research fellow in the health services and policy group. She is part of a fast-response policy research unit (PREPARE) that delivers analyses on a wide variety of topics for the Department of Health and Social Care. Ana has a broad research portfolio that uses evidence synthesis, quantitative, and qualitative analyses to answer questions relevant to policymaking.

In parallel, Ana is part of EQUIPOL, a Wellcome-funded programme of research aiming to develop and use methods to analyse the impact of policy decisions on health inequalities. In this work, Ana developed local equity data packs to help commissioners identify how inequalities in emergency admissions have changed (or not) over time in their area.

Ana also has an interest in recovery after a critical illness and ways in which care after hospital discharge could be improved. This is an area that she will work on in an NIHR award she received in 2024.

Qualifications

• PhD in Health Sciences, University of York
• MSc in Evidence-based Healthcare, University of Oxford
• PGDip in Medical teaching, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
• PGDip in Research methods and evidence-based medicine, Universidad de Los Andes
• PGDip in Respiratory therapy, University of Chile
• BSc in Physiotherapy, University of Chile

Research

Overview

Ana's main research interests include recovery after a critical illness, evaluation of health policies, economic evaluation of health services, and health inequalities.

Projects

• The Partnership for REsponsive Policy Analysis and REsearch (PREPARE) programme, funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme, and involving a team of researchers at the University of York (led by Karen Bloor) and the King's Fund (led by Richard Murray) aims to improve the quality of evidence upon which strategic health policy decisions are based, by providing expert advice, policy briefings and empirical and theoretical analysis. Ana’s projects include:
  • Measuring prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in the UK: a scoping study
  • Informing prioritisation of the backlog for elective surgery: summary of a scoping review
  • Support and follow-up needs of patients discharged from intensive care after severe COVID-19: a mixed-methods study of the views of UK general practitioners and intensive care staff during the pandemic’s first wave.
  • Estimating the Economic Value of NIHR Biomedical Research Centres and Units
  • The patient experience of multi-morbidity: a systematic review
  • Housing and Technology Capital Fund Scoping
• Re-engineering Health Policy Research for Fairer Decisions and Better Health (a.k.a. EQUIPOL). Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this project draws together leading international collaborators from the fields of health services research, epidemiology, economics and ethics. As part of EQUIPOL, Ana worked on:
  • Local Equity Data Packs for England 2009-2018.
  • Geographical health inequalities in England, in particular, for “Deaths of Despair”
  • Inequalities in mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Mixed Methods Evaluation of the high-volume low-complexity surgical hUb pRogrammE (MEASURE). Funded by NIHR, this programme of research focuses on assessing the impact of high-volume low-complexity surgical hubs. Ana is currently working on a large scoping review on initiatives similar to high volume low complexity hubs.
• The Minimising Sedation in Intensive Care patients (MISSION-ICU) project aimed to explore clinicians’ views across the UK on why sedation optimisation is not achieved and to seek their suggestions for strategies that are likely to assist with attaining sedation optimisation. This project was funded by St Barts’ charity, and it was a collaboration between City University of London, Queen’s University Belfast, Edinburgh Napier University, Birmingham City University, and the University of Edinburgh.
• The Impact on Mental, Physical and Cognitive functioning of a Critical care sTay during the COVID-19 pandemic (IMPACCT COVID-19) study was funded by Universidad del Desarrollo and sponsored by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID-0772). This mixed-methods project aimed at exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental, physical, and cognitive health of survivors, the experience of their families and their treating healthcare professionals.

Research group(s)

• Health Services and Policy

Supervision

Ana would be interested in supervising PhDs focusing on evaluating health policies, particularly, those that might affect quality performance of health services or health inequalities.

Publications

Full publications list

• Ana Castro's publications

Teaching

Undergraduate

Various contributions to post-registration nursing, and HYMS modules.

Postgraduate

Various contributions to the health policy and health and social behaviour modules.

Module lead – Evidence-based practice and evidence synthesis as part of the MSc in rehabilitation and physical therapy, Carrera de Kinesiologia, Facultad de Medicina, Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile

External activities

Memberships

• Expert rehabilitation group node, Joanna Briggs Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Adelaide