4858 Mental Health Report - National University of Ireland, Galway

About the Authors
Dr. Margaret Barry is a statutory lecturer at the Department of Health Promotion,
National University of Ireland, Galway; deputy director of the Centre for Health
Promotion Studies (CHPS) and course director of the MA/diploma programme in
health promotion. Her research areas include mental health promotion,
evaluation research, community perceptions and quality of life issues. Since
joining the CHPS, she has been responsible for developing and managing a
number of large-scale cross-border studies concerning the evaluation of mental
health promotion programmes in schools and in community-based settings.
Previously she held posts as lecturer in psychology at the University of
Birmingham and Trinity College, Dublin, and as deputy director of the Health
Services Research Unit at University College North Wales. She is currently visiting
lecturer at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre at the Institute of
Psychiatry, King’s College, London.
Sharon Friel is assistant academic director for the nutrition and lifestyle division
of the Centre for Health Promotion Studies, including the National Nutrition
Surveillance Centre, at NUI Galway. Her interests are in population health
monitoring and nutrition related health inequalities, and she is the co-ordinator
of the national health and lifestyle survey of Ireland, SLÁN. She is the national
investigator in three strands of the EU Health Monitoring Programme and the
pan-EU DAFNE project. Currently she is the chairperson of the Association for
Health Promotion, Ireland.
Colette Dempsey graduated with an MA in health promotion from the
Department of Health Promotion at NUI Galway in 1999. She joined the Centre
for Health Promotion Studies as a researcher in November 2000 and has a special
interest in mental health promotion. She recently completed a term as director of
the Galway branch of The Samaritans.
Gloria Avalos is a specialist in survey research data management within the
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of NUI Galway. She has a joint
appointment within the Departments of Health Promotion and Medical
Informatics and Medical Education as a data co-ordinator for research studies.
She also lectures in the areas of statistics and computers as applied to medicine
and nursing in the faculty.
Dr Patricia Clarke is a research officer at the Centre for Cross Border Studies in
Armagh. After completing her research doctorate at the University of
Birmingham on GP referral patterns for lifestyle behaviour change, she worked
with the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust researching the emergency care of
cardiac patients. Since joining the Centre in 2000, she has also worked on a report
on cross-border co-operation in Information and Communications Technologies,
an evaluation of the Co-operation and Working Together (CAWT) cross-border
network of health boards and trusts, and studies of North-South co-operation in
health services and the cross-border dimension of the 2001 foot-and-mouth
disease crisis.
2