Dr Louise Laverty

Profile

I joined the School of Dentistry as a Lecturer in Sociology and Dental Public Health in November 2024. In this role, I bring a social science perspective to teaching and research around dental health services and policy.

Responsibilities

• Dental Research Ethics Committee (DREC) member

Research interests

My research interests cover critical public health, dental health services, childhood and youth studies, and the role of technology in everyday life. I have specialised in qualitative methods, using various approaches including participant observation, biographical narrative interview techniques, focus groups, visual methods, and citizens’ juries. My PhD was an 18-month ethnography that examined how austerity exacerbated existing disadvantages within communities, looking at the direct and indirect effects of educational cuts, food insecurity, and the bedroom tax on the lives of youth people. Since then, I have carried out in-depth ethnographies in dental settings (looking at interactions and discussions around risk in dental appointments) and health settings (looking at the implementation of predictive modelling technology in clinical settings).

I am a co-investigator on a number of funded projects, most recently as the qualitative lead on an NIHR HS&DR funded study, Mouth Matters in Mental Health (The-Mouth-Matters-in-Mental-Health-Study - Lancaster University). This feasibility study looked at the use of link workers to support access to dental care for patients with severe mental illness.

I regularly conduct peer review for journals (including Big Data & Society, Sociology of Health and Illness, BMC Health Services Research, Journal of Youth Studies, and others) and grant funders (NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) and Kidney Research UK).

2025 SAGE Innovation and Excellence Award co-winner for the paper Laverty, Checkland and Spooner (2024) ‘Unpromising Futures: Early-Career GPs’ Narrative Accounts of Meaningful Work during a Professional Workforce Crisis’ published in the BSA journal Work, Employment and Society SAGE Prize for Innovation/Excellence

Qualifications

• PhD in Sociology
• Masters in Research Methods
• BSc (Hons)

Student education

I teach on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (MSc in Dental Public Health) on topics related to the sociology of health and illness and supervise students in these areas.