Dr Beth Nichol

Dr Beth Nichol is a Research Fellow linked to our prevention including multiple long-term conditions research theme. She is hosted by Northumbria University.

She is passionate about disease prevention and is particularly motivated by the World Health Organization’s ‘best buys’ for the prevention of noncommunicable diseases, namely through targeting poor diet, physical activity, alcohol, and smoking.

This has framed all of the research that she has conducted, including in-depth research on Making Every Contact Count (MECC), which is a person-centred approach to having health behaviour change conversations during routine interactions.

She is a founding member of the Newcastle MECC research group and continues to develop research to improve the implementation of and evidence base behind MECC.

More broadly, she is interested in research projects that aim to prevent and reduce harm. This has included projects on increasing cervical screening using text message reminders, exploring why people go abroad for high-risk weight loss and cosmetic surgeries, and exploring the health and wellbeing impacts of volunteering.

She also holds a Fellowship from the NIHR Three Schools’ Prevention programme.

She is experienced in systematic and umbrella review methodologies, qualitative and mixed methods approaches, and applying behavioural science theory.

She also has an interest in realist thinking and applying realist evaluation and synthesis to evaluate complex interventions and gain shared learning across interventions.