Dr. Rikke Siersbaek

Dr Rikke Siersbaek is a Research Fellow in the Discipline of Clinical Medicine in the School of Medicine. She holds a PhD in population health and health services research from Trinity College Dublin which she completed as a scholar on the SPHeRE programme (www.sphereprogramme.ie).

She is currently leading on a realist review as part of the INCLUDE project (Integrating National Repositories for the Cooperation Linkage and Understanding of a Data Driven approach to the needs of Excluded people). The study entitled Social exclusion over the life course: A realist review (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=410489), will contribute to our understanding of how social exclusion happens through complex intersectional social processes to populations such as people experiencing homelessness, people with substance dependencies, sex workers, prisoners, and certain minorities (Travellers, aboriginal people).

In 2022 she completed a research project entitled 'How and why do financial incentives contribute to helping people stop smoking? A realist review' (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=298941) under co-PIs Dr Sara Burke from the Centre for Health Policy and Management (https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=burkes17) and Dr Paul Kavanagh from the HSE Health Intelligence Unit. Additionally, she worked on the HRB-funded Foundations' project (https://www.tcd.ie/medicine/health_policy_management/research/current/foundations/), researching how key learnings from Ireland's health systems responses to COVID-19 can be used to inform the implementation of Sláintecare.

Her thesis is entitled 'How can health systems make healthcare more accessible for populations experiencing homelessness? A realist and policy analysis' (http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/97976).

Prior to undertaking her PhD, she was part of the Trinity College Dublin research team which provided technical support to the Committee on the Future of Healthcare and assisted with the drafting of the Sláintecare report, the ten year plan for reforming the Irish health service published in 2017 ( https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/committee/dail/32/committee_on_the_future_of_healthcare/reports/2017/2017-05-30_slaintecare-report_en.pdf).

Her research interests include health inequalities, health systems, and health policy, as well as realist research in the school of Pawson and Tilley. She has attended various realist training courses including a week-long Oxford University short course in realist review and realist evaluation taught by Dr Geoff Wong and Dr Chrysanthi Papoutsi.

She is the co-author of seven peer reviewed research articles and one book chapter and has presented her research at national and international conferences. She has undertaken consultancy work for Focus Ireland resulting in the publication of a report entitled 'Supporting the mental health of children in families that are homeless: a trauma informed approach' (https://www.focusireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Supporting-the-mental-health-of-children_FINAL.pdf).

She is a member of the volunteer leadership group running the All Ireland Inclusion Health Forum (inclusionhealth.ie).