Lucy Thompson
About our researcher Lucy Thompson
About Lucy Thompson
Dr Lucy Thompson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Applied Health Sciences at the University of Aberdeen and has been a member of the GNC since its inception in 2011. Her PhD in Psychology and Master of Public Health degree provided the ideal foundation to develop her research in early child development and parental wellbeing. As well as her time in the university sector she spent several years in the Scottish national health service (NHS) as a senior public health researcher and her work has continued to have an applied focus. Her publications include research on whole population screening for neurodevelopmental problems, evaluation of parenting support interventions, use of whole population datasets and data linkage, and systematic literature reviews. Her role in the GNC is as International Research Coordinator, currently focused on developing an ESSENCE research program with colleagues in South Africa.
Research interests
Dr Thompson’s research focuses on early predictors of childhood mental health and neurodevelopmental problems, such as language delay, disruptive behaviour problems like ADHD, and autism spectrum conditions. With a particular interest in the perinatal period and how best services can support parents and help developing families thrive, she values a multi-disciplinary and mixed-methods approach to obtaining the best quality evidence that reflects people’s lived experiences. Dr Thompson has taken a lead role in a number of studies investigating the effectiveness of parenting support interventions, including the Mellow Babies Trial. With colleagues she set up a whole population mental health screening project in the education system in Glasgow (the ChiME datasets) and has examined the predictive validity of health visitor screening and observation of video-recorded parent-child interaction for the later identification of neurodevelopmental problems. Her current focus is on developing a screening and prevalence program in rural, resource poor South Africa.
Funding
- NIHR (National Institute of Health Research, UK Department of Health)
- CSO (Scottish Government Chief Scientist’s Office)
- NHS (UK National Health Service, funding from regional health authorities including Grampian, Highland, and Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
- Trygfonden (Denmark)
- Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy
- William Grant Foundation (UK)
- Yorkhill Children’s Foundation (UK)
