Patricia Lucas
- Senior Lecturer - BA, PhD
- Centre for Research in Health and Social Care
- Tel: +44 (0)117 3310866
- Email: Patricia.Lucas@bristol.ac.uk
Personal profile
Patricia Lucas joined the BSc Early Childhood Studies team in 2004 after completing her PhD at UCL, London evaluating a reading intervention with primary school aged children and writing for What Works for Children evidence ‘nuggets’. Her interest have ranged from poor readers, to breast feeding, growth in infancy, nutrition intervention, depression in fathers of young children, to mentoring and CBT for conduct disordered youth. She is currently collaborating on research with academics in the UK and internationally.
She is also book reviews editor for the journal Psychology, Health and Medicine.
Patricia is the Postgraduate Research Admissions Officer for the School for Policy Studies.
Her research falls into two main categories:
Early childhood development
- Primary focus on educational, nutritional and social interventions and outcomes for children.
- Secondary areas of research have included child disability, poverty and deprivation, and inequalities in health.
Systematic reviews and the development of an evidence base for policy
- completed systematic reviews on infant growth and outcomes and population interventions for improving nutrition and diet.
- currently working on a review for the Cochrane Collaboration of the benefits to children of increased welfare payments to families and a knowledge review of evidence on challenging behaviour in children’s residential care with Professor David Berridge.
Teaching interests
She contributes to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the following topics: children in society, applied developmental psychology, evidence-based practice, family support, language and literacy development, and obesity in children.
She also contributed to the School’s programme of widening participation, teaching on the Sutton Trust Summer Schools and taking part in the Compact Scheme.
Research interests
Early childhood development; educational, nutritional and social interventions and outcomes for children; child disability, poverty and deprivation; and inequalities in health.
Research projects
Current
- CHICOS - Developing a CHild COhort Strategy in Europe
- Healthy start - understanding the use of vouchers
- Improving the quality of care for children with respiratory tract infections in primary care (TARGET). A Hay, P Little, B Delaney, T Peters, A Lovering, P Lucas, J Horwood, J Ingram, M Thompson, P Blair, P Muir, S Hollinghurst, S Mulvenna, P Brindle and M Fletcher
- TEAMPLAY- Parents and children partnering for healthy lifestyles