Psychology PhD student awarded policy internship
Hildigunnur Anna Hall will spend 3 months working with Scottish policymakers on health-related topics
Congratulations to psychology PhD student Hildigunnur Anna Hall who will begin a 3-month full-time placement in the Scottish Parliament in January 2019.
She will be working with Committee clerks and researchers in the health policy team of the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) to assist in gathering and synthesising existing research and policy.
Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe)
Maternal well-being and child development
Anna’s PhD, supervised by Dr Bonnie Auyeung and Dr Tom Booth, focuses on using existing data to assess links between women’s health during pregnancy and children’s developmental outcomes.
One of the aims of the PhD is to examine these associations in the context of deprivation, to assess how health inequalities may have an effect. This research addresses a current gap in the literature by including data from a variety of sources, such as hospitals, GP practices and questionnaires.
Findings will contribute to information and guidance for health care practitioners in the field of perinatal care. The research will further shed light on the outcomes of children affected by prenatal maternal health issues from areas with varying levels of deprivation, and help to guide policy and healthcare interventions to address inequalities.
Developing policy links
The placement will allow Anna to understand how policymaking in general, and health policy in particular, is developed and scrutinised in the Scottish Parliament.
I’m very excited about this placement because it will provide me with an opportunity to learn how to use my research skills in a policy context and understand how to communicate research to a policy audience. I believe this experience will be of great value for me as a researcher as it will shed light on important pathways of research impacting society
Anna will work with colleagues in the School of PPLS to discuss how to share the learning from this placement with fellow PhD students.
The internships are awarded via a highly competitive process open to all 2nd and 3rd-year UKRI-funded PhD students across the UK. The call for the next round of internships will open in the summer.