Anita Mehay

Dr Anita Mehay is a Research Fellow and Health Psychologist in the department of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL. Her academic base is inter-disciplinary spanning critical psychology, sociology, social work and criminology and focuses on health and wellbeing in early-years and young adulthood. Anita is a mixed-methods researcher with a particular expertise in conducting trials of complex, group-based health interventions with nested process evaluations. She has worked on several large RCUK-funded trials and has also successfully been awarded externally funded consultancy and research grants including from the Prisoners' Education Trust, Greater London Authority, Prostate Cancer UK, and the Minstry of Justice (UK).

Anita is currently engaged on a large-scale national trial of the 'Strengthening Families, Strengthing Communities', a group-based parenting intervention for families from ethnic and socially disadvantaged backgrounds (developed by the Race Equality Foundation).

Anita is also currently engaged in three other research studies:
1. A pilot study of a Mediterranean diet intervention (delivery through an app) for diabetes prevention in mothers that had gestational diabetes controlled with medication (MERIT study based at QMUL)
2. Development and evaluation of a Masterclass Programme to optimise and increase the effectiveness of Community Development approaches to improving health and wellbeing and resilience across London’s most disadvantaged communities. Funded by Greater London Authory.
3. An evaluation of an adapted version of the 'Strengthening Families, Strengthing Communities', a group-based parent/family intervention for young people in prison and their parental figure to support transition on release. Funded by a Ministry of Justice (UK) grant.

Anita also currently co-supervises two PhD students.