Suzanne is a Clinical Research Fellow in Environmental Health in the Institute of Applied Health Research, an Honorary Consultant in Public Health at Public Health England. Her research portfolio extends across ambient and indoor air quality, sustainable transport and environmental public policy.
Public Health Impacts of Ambient and Indoor Air Pollution
Suzanne is Principal Investigator for the OxAria Study investigating impacts of COVID-19 air and noise quality and health in Oxford City utilising a cloud-based low-cost sensor network. The project, a collaboration with Dr Felix Leach, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford has supported rapid deployment of a low-cost air quality and acoustic sensor network in Oxford City, for evaluation of responsive COVID-19 interventions. Partners include Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council, Ricardo Energy & Environment and Apertum.
The West Midlands Air Quality Improvement Programme (WM-Air) led by Professor William Bloss is a £5M NERC funded initiative, led by the University of Birmingham, in collaboration with over 20 cross sector partners, applying environmental science expertise to support the improvement of air quality, and associated health, environmental and economic benefits, across the West Midlands. As WM-Air Public Health lead Suzanne is leading development of a novel health and economic impact assessment tool to enable prediction, assessment and evaluation of future regional air quality policy scenarios.
Application of a multiplicity of datastreams for air quality and health impact evaluation in East Africa is a key focus of the EPSRC funded Digital Air Quality in East Africa project, led by Professor Francis Pope, School of Geography and Earth Sciences. The network brings together leading UK and East African researchers in air pollution, public health, social sicences and development studies to co-design new data science techniques to synthesise disparate data streams for improved understanding of historic, contemporary and future air quality.
Research undertaken by Suzanne in collaboration with the University of Rwanda College of Science and Technology in Kigali, Rwanda seeks to identify the health impacts of domestic biomass cooking and inform effective interventions for harm mitigation in low-income contexts.
Transport and Health
Suzanne leads the multidisciplinary TRANSITION Clean Air Network addressing future air quality challenges supported by UK Research and Innovation Clean Air Strategic Priorities Fund Wave 2 investment. The network aim is to identify, prioritise and address new emerging indoor and outdoor air quality challenges linked to the UK low emission mobility revolution. Partners include co-investigators at nine UK universities, Public Health England and over 20 public, commercial and civic sector organisations.
Health and Environmental Public Policy
Suzanne is Co-Investigator and public health lead for Actively anticipating the unintended consequences on air quality of future public policies (ANTICIPATE) led by Professor Nigel Gilbert at the University of Surrey. The NERC funded study within Wave 1 of the Clean Air Strategic Priorities Fund seeks to bring together policy analysts and policy makers from UK central government, devolved administrations and local and regional authorities, stakeholders from business and civil society organisations, and academics and researchers to explore forthcoming policy initiatives for their consequences (intended or unintended, positive or negative) on air quality.
Responsive evaluation of local authority public health interventions is the focus of the NIHR Public Health Interventions Responsive Studies Team led by Professor Katherine Brown at the University of Hertfordshire. Suzanne is a Co-Investigator for the PHIRST team (one of four national units) providing natural experimental intervention evaluation with a focus on transport and infrastructure schemes.
Suzanne is also a member of the FUEL study team, led by Dr Miranda Pallan and Professor Peymane Adab at the Institute for Applied Health Research. The FUEL study is an evaluation of the School Food Standards and related national policy in secondary schools in the West Midlands, funded by the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research scheme.
Research groups and Centres