Dr. Kristin Hadfield
Assistant Professor, Psychology

Projects

• Title
  • Family Intervention for Empowerment through Reading and Education (FIERCE)
• Summary
  • Community-led, shared book-reading interventions can improve early childhood development and reduce inequity. One such program, We Love Reading (WLR), was implemented in Jordan in response to the Syrian refugee crisis and involves mothers reading stories to children. We will examine the potentially transformative nature of WLR, by (a) evaluating WLR qualitatively and quantitatively and (b) interviewing the people who developed and implemented WLR (WLR Ambassadors, women trained in WLR, children who took part) to create a toolkit for effectively developing and implementing non-formal education resources elsewhere. To address the first aim, we will conduct a grounded theory analysis of interviews with stakeholders (i.e. parents, children) and will conduct a quantitative randomized controlled trial with Syrian refugee women and children. This will allow us to understand how an education intervention may impact children's educational trajectories during war and displacement, and how we can effectively intervene in other humanitarian crisis contexts. For more information on the project, see: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/education-learning-in-crises-developing-implementing-transformational-intervention/
• Funding Agency
  • British Academy, Provost's PhD Project Award
• Date From
  • March 2020

• Title
  • Improving mental health, wellbeing, and resilience of healthcare workers in changing environments (APOLLO)
• Summary
  • APOLLO is a European Commission-funded research collaboration between researchers located across Finland, France, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, Sweden, and the United States. The objectives of APOLLO are to: (1) identify (i) individual, (ii) organisational, and (iii) meso-organisational (team, middle-manager) level factors that affect the physiological and mental health, wellbeing and resilience of health and healthcare workers and, (2) use this understanding to provide stronger and more cost-efficient managerial tools that can be used to better train team managers and directors of hospitals on methods to enhance the resilience of healthcare professionals and, (3) in turn, improve and increase collaboration between policymakers and stakeholders to jointly fight against factors causing stress in the workplace.
• Funding Agency
  • European Commission

• Title
  • Developing a conceptual framework for climate attitudes
• Summary
  • The Environmental Protection Agency commissioned this systematic review to explore attitudes towards climate change through a person-centred lens, recognising the paramount role of individual and collective human actions in both the genesis and mitigation of climate change. Underpinned by Bronfenbrenner"s Bioecological Systems Theory, in this project we explore the multifaceted nature of perceptions of climate change, highlighting key influences on climate change attitudes. At the heart of this exploration is the recognition that human activity significantly influences climate change, making individual actions and the internal processes driving these actions critical to addressing environmental challenges.
• Funding Agency
  • Environmental Protection Agency
• Date From
  • 06/2023
• Date To
  • 02/2024

• Title
  • Understanding and measuring pregnancy-related anxiety in low- and middle-income contexts: A pilot study in northern Ghana
• Summary
  • Prenatal anxiety has been associated with poor health outcomes of mothers and children, but much of the evidence is based on high-income nations using measures that have been developed for the use in Western populations. Hence, we need first to systematically review research on prenatal anxiety in order to get a clear overview of levels of pregnancy-related anxiety and relations with maternal and neonatal mortality. Then, we will apply a bottom-up approach, using focus group discussions to investigate the domains of pregnancy-related anxiety in Ghanaian women. This will inform the adaptation and validation of a measure of prenatal anxiety that is culturally relevant and adapted to the context in Ghana. The adapted measure will be pilot tested in a survey study of 575 pregnant women in northern Ghana.
• Funding Agency
  • UK Medical Research Council
• Date From
  • January 2021
• Date To
  • January 2022

• Title
  • Effects of early childhood trauma on the development of healthy interpersonal skills
• Summary
  • This aim of this project is to measure the psychological impact of forced migration on children's interpersonal skills, which are a strong predictor of their future mental health. Specifically, we ask whether the foundation of communication, emotion recognition, is impaired in these vulnerable children. Facial emotions convey critical information about state of mind and the inability to interpret emotional expressions is associated with clinical disorders. Sensitivity to facial emotions is impaired in children that have suffered abuse and it is therefore likely that refugee children who have endured or witnessed trauma may also have impaired emotion recognition, disrupting healthy social communication and increasing vulnerability to mental health issues. We will test this hypothesis and will evaluate the potential benefits of a low-cost, scalable intervention. To achieve this ambitious goal we have built a multidisciplinary team that joins world leading scientists and the multiple-award winning NGO "We Love Reading" (WLR), who bring story-telling to young refugee children in Jordan. Hearing and reading stories is a major source for learning social rules that can help children understand another person's emotional state. The collaboration therefore provides a unique opportunity to assess whether an affordable and easily implemented intervention can mitigate the effects of early adverse experiences on emotion recognition in children. Our proposal offers significant potential for academic and non-academic impact including for policy development in response to the growing refugee crisis.
• Funding Agency
  • The Waterloo Foundation
• Date From
  • November 2018
• Date To
  • November 2019

• Title
  • Building a partnership to understand and promote child refugee wellbeing in Uganda
• Summary
  • This project funded the meeting of researchers and NGO representatives from the Global South and Global North in Uganda to discuss how wellbeing and mental health can best be promoted among refugee children and adolescents. We developed our network, built our capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration, and are in the process of disseminating our learning through conference presentations and publications.
• Funding Agency
  • Irish Research Council
• Date From
  • 12/2021
• Date To
  • 09/2022

• Title
  • Engaging Adolescents in Sexual Health Services in Ethiopia (EASE)
• Summary
  • EASE uses participatory action research methods to examine and implement meaningful, gender sensitive participation of adolescents in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service design and delivery. Specifically, EASE is designed to address two research objectives. Firstly, to determine (i) what adolescents consider to be their meaningful engagement in SRH services and secondly, to (ii) describe a model of good practice for how to involve adolescents, as required by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health's Standards for the minimum delivery of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.
• Funding Agency
  • Irish Research Council
• Date From
  • 09/2021
• Date To
  • 09/2024

• Title
  • A systematic review of the impacts of pollution on child mental health
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 01/2021
• Date To
  • 12/2021

• Title
  • Evidence to assess the impact of COVID-19 on community-based dementia care in Nova Scotia
• Funding Agency
  • Nova Scotia COVID-19 Health Research Coalition
• Date From
  • July 2020

• Title
  • Global Resilience Oral Workshops (GROW) Zambia: A storytelling approach to hope and resilience through character training and spiritual practices.
• Funding Agency
  • John Templeton Foundation
• Date From
  • September 2017
• Date To
  • August 2019

• Title
  • The effects of urbanization on life-long mental health - from individual to community
• Funding Agency
  • Queen Mary University of London
• Date From
  • November 2018
• Date To
  • July 2019

• Title
  • Measuring effects of climate change on adolescent mental health in Madagascar
• Summary
  • Climate changes have increased the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, impacting mental and physical health, particularly among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, where the effects are less understood. This project explored these impacts in Madagascar by collaborating with Catholic University in Madagascar, CBM Madagascar, local organisations for persons with disabilities, and adolescents to improve mental health. We conducted interviews and collected pilot data, to understand the impacts of climate changes on mental health among adolescents in Androy.
• Funding Agency
  • Queen Mary University of London

• Title
  • Understanding and promoting resilience factors and processes among caregivers of people with dementia
• Funding Agency
  • Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• Date From
  • May 2017

• Title
  • Patterns of resilience among youth in contexts of petrochemical production and consumption in the Global North and Global South
• Funding Agency
  • Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• Date From
  • December 2016
• Date To
  • January 2021

• Title
  • Understanding youth resilience to violent extremism: A standardised measure
• Funding Agency
  • Australian Attorney General's Department
• Date From
  • July 2016
• Date To
  • July 2017

• Title
  • The effects of pollution on child and adolescent mental health
• Summary
  • Whilst there is little uncertainty about the deleterious impact of pollution on human and planetary health, pollution's impact on mental health is less well understood. This is particularly true for children and adolescents - especially those in underdeveloped and developing world contexts, about whom research is generally lacking. This project involves a systematic review to examine the associations between pollution exposure and mental health and neurodevelopment of young people.
• Funding Agency
  • Arts and Social Sciences Benefaction Fund
• Date From
  • February 2021

• Title
  • Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) Ignite
• Summary
  • We hosted a half-day workshop that united experts in youth involvement in health research and young PPI contributors from across Ireland, offering them a platform to exchange experiences and best practices in youth engagement. The event featured a series of panel discussions, roundtable discussions on various youth engagement issues, and a keynote address by Dr Danielle Kennan, culminating in the formation of a learning group for ongoing collaboration and learning.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin