Dr Jo Parsons PhD, C.Psychol

• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), University of Warwick, 2025
• PhD in Health and Nursing Studies, Coventry University, 2019
• MSc in Health Psychology, Coventry University, 2014
• MSc in Psychology, Open University, 2010
• BSc (hons) in Psychology, Staffordshire University, 2004

Jo is primarily a qualitative health researcher, with a track record of designing and planning high quality qualitative research.  She has experience in securing funding for qualitative research, and leading qualitative projects. She has experience in all stages of planning and conducting studies. She also has experience in designing and evaluating health interventions and completing process evaluations alongside trials. She is skilled in evidence synthesis techniques, with significant expertise in systematic reviewing.

Her academic background is in Health Psychology and her primary research interest is around understanding and increasing vaccination uptake in pregnancy, and the development and testing of an intervention for this population.

Her current research portfolio consists of a wide variety of topics. She is currently working on a number of projects developing digital health interventions, working as part of large research teams evaluating a stroke intervention, early health checks for young people with intellectual disabilities, an educational intervention for suturing skills for midwives, and an AI chatbot for maternal vaccination.

Jo is the co-lead for the MSc Health Care Policy and Management Dissertation module.

Jo is currently supervising three PhD students, primary supervisor for one examining predictors for mental health in relation to Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, and second supervisor on two further PhD student for one conducting a feasibility RCT study examining ankle fixation surgery, and the other examining patient facing triage tools in primary care.

Jo would be interested in supervising doctoral students in broad health science subjects, particularly in areas related to maternal health, health interventions, behaviour change.

Maternal health research

One of her primary research areas is maternal health. Much of the research within this area focuses on the exploration of vaccination behaviour amongst pregnant women, and how to increase vaccination rates amongst this population.

She is currently leading a project developing an intervention to increase vaccination amongst pregnant women, based on previous qualitative research that explored the beliefs and perceptions pregnant women hold about vaccination post COVID-19.

She is also working as a qualitative lead on FutureSuture, a project developing and testing an educational intervention for suturing for midwives, and a project developing an AI chatbot for maternal vaccination.

Evidence synthesis

She is currently working on a number of systematic reviews. One examining how the Illness Risk Representation framework (a theoretical framework health behaviour change theory) has been used to explain vaccination behaviour (to compliment the vaccination in pregnancy intervention development work), one on needs assessments for children and young people with SEND, and one exploring factors influencing maternal vaccination in women with long-term or mental health conditions.

Qualitative expertise

She is currently involved in a number of additional studies as qualitative lead on studies developing and/or testing health interventions. RESTORE is a large clinical trial examining the effectiveness of an intervention for stroke patients. She is a qualitative lead and is conducting process evaluation as part of the trial. She is also qualitative lead on a study developing and testing an intervention for increasing annual health checks in young people with intellectual disabilities.