Cheryl McQuire is a public health researcher with particular interests in maternal and child health, specialising in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).

She has specific methodological interests in natural experiments and methods to improve causal inference.

Current Roles:

• Programme Manager: Healthy Places, Healthy Planet. NIHR School for Public Health and Care Research
• Postdoctoral Launching Fellow. NIHR School for Public Health and Care Research

Current Projects:

• Conceptualising local systems of consumption that produce inequalities: the night time economy (SPHR-HPHP-WP1-CDH).
• Addressing the fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) ‘data gap’: ascertaining the feasibility of establishing the first UK National linked database for FASD.
• Mapping the landscape of prenatal alcohol prevention in the UK: a collaborative review https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/members/university-of-bristol/mapping-the-landscape-of-prenatal-alcohol-prevention-in-the-uk-a-collaborative-review/).
• Preventing prenatal alcohol exposure in the UK: a systematic review of the published and grey literature. (PROSPERO protocol https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=209460).
• Trends in FASD Research: A systematic scoping review and bibliometric analysis 

Current Student Supervision:

• ‘No alcohol in pregnancy – better safe or better worry? A digital and social media analysis of the acceptability and unintended consequences of the abstinence message’ (3.5 years from Oct 2021; GW4 DTP PhD project supervisor)
• Does Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) classification predict engagement in adolescent Multiple Risk Behaviours (MRBs)? (MSc Dissertation supervisor)
• UK media coverage of alcohol in pregnancy : A thematic analysis of (mis)information. (MSc Dissertation supervisor)

Background 

Previously, Cheryl has led systematic reviews and meta-analyses on intellectual disabilities and pre/postnatal mental health for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

She has also worked in a research and applied capacity for the National Offender Management Service, as well as in residential settings for families with complex needs.

Cheryl has a BSc in Applied Psychology (Cardiff University; 2008), a MSc in Forensic Psychology (Cardiff Metropolitan University; 2011) and a PhD in Epidemiology (Thesis "Epidemiology of Prenatal Alcohol Use and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders; Cardiff University, 2018).

In 2017 Cheryl joined the Centre for Public Health back in her home town at the University of Bristol, where she has continued to grow her methodological and subject-matter expertise in the areas of child and maternal health and alcohol-related harm.