Dr Kerry Brennan-Tovey
Research Fellow – Supporting Children and Families
Kerry completed her undergraduate degree in Physiotherapy at Northumbria University. Kerry then worked as a physiotherapist in the NHS in the North East, before completing her MSc in Public Health and her PhD at the University of Sunderland.
Her PhD focused on the food aid user’s perspectives of the discourses present in food aid usage during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this affected the wellbeing of food aid uses.
Prior to commencing her role as an ARC Fellow, Kerry worked as a research associate at Newcastle University on NIHR ARC and SPHR projects. She evaluated the NHS-funded tobacco dependence services for acute, mental health and maternity settings, before moving to exploring the barriers that prevent pregnant women living on low incomes to access maternity care, using Children North East’s Poverty Proofing approach.
Areas of research interest and focus
- Maternity inequalities and disparities
- Barriers to accessing maternity healthcare services
- Barriers to accessing women’s health services
- Evaluating specialist maternity services during pregnancy and postpartum (i.e., tobacco services and specialist mental health services)
- Qualitative research methods
- Public involvement and community engagement in research
Recent publications
- Adams, E.A., Brennan-Tovey, K., McGarth, J., Thirkle, S., Jain, N., Aquino, M.R.J., Bartle, V., Kennedy, J., Ogden, M., Parker, J., Koehne, S., Kaner, E., Ramsay, S.E. (2024). ‘A co-produced international qualitative systematic review on lived experience of trauma during homelessness in adulthood and impacts on mental health.’ Trauma Violence Abuse.
- Adams, EA; Aquino, MRJ; Bartle, V; Brennan-Tovey, K; Kennedy, J; McGrath, J; Ogden, M; Parker, J; Kaner, E and Ramsay, SE. (2023). ‘International evidence on lived experience of trauma during homelessness and effects on mental health including substance use: a co-produced qualitative systematic review’. Submitted to UK Public Health Science Conference: The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02075-5
- Brennan-Tovey, K., Board, E., Fulton, J., (2023). ‘Counteracting Stigma-Power: an ethnographic case study of an Independent Community Food Hub’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231199095
- Wade, S., Brennan-Tovey, K., Aquino, MRJ., Aveyard, P., Kaner, E., Ramsay, SE. (2023) ‘Understanding the implementation context for NHS-funded tobacco dependence services in England using the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) framework’. Submitted to Society for Social Medicine and Population Health (SSM) Annual Scientific Meeting: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2023-SSMabstracts.169
- Brennan-Tovey, K. Aquino, MRJ., Flanagan, S., Kaner, E., Wearn, A., Bigirumurame, T., Fong, M., Todd, A., Aveyard, P., Jolly, K., Damery, S., Attwood, A., Robson, D., West, J., Bridges, S., Armitage, C., Russel, S., Strong, S., Ramsay, SE. (2022) ‘Implementation of the NHS-funded tobacco dependence services in England: a qualitative study to understand the contexts of implementation’. Submitted to UK Public Health Science Conference: The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)02234-6
Get in touch
Email: [email protected]
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5516-6230