Chris Patterson

Biography

Chris is a research assistant at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit. Chris joined the unit in 2010, having graduated with a BA (Hons) from Edinburgh Napier University and an MSc in Social Research at the University of Edinburgh. In his role within the Informing Healthy Public Policy programme, Chris has developed a body of work looking at how the public, practitioners and policymakers understand and use health research, and particularly what role the media play in those processes.

Research Interest

Chris’ research broadly concerns how the public, practitioners and policymakers understand and use health research, and particularly what role the media play in those processes. With Shona Hilton, Chris has developed methods for quantitative and qualitative analysis of media content, and has used these methods to examine media representations of health issues including: the obesity epidemic; minimum unit pricing for alcohol; smoke-free policy; eating disorders; e-cigarette regulation; and ‘binge’ drinking. In addition to media content analysis, Chris has published research examining how the public perceive health issues, including a qualitative interview study of gay and bisexual men’s perceptions of donating tissue for research and a focus group study of teenager’s understandings of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases. Chris was instrumental in delivering Understanding Health Research, a web-based tool designed to guide non-scientists through the process of understandings and appraising a piece of published health research.