Kathryn Skivington

Kathryn graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 2004 with an MA in Psychology.  After two years working and travelling abroad she returned to the same university to complete an MSc in Health Services Research and Public Health.  For her thesis project she explored the methodologies of different case review techniques (clinical audit, confidential enquiry, maternal death review and verbal autopsy) for maternal mortality in developing countries.

Kathryn joined the Evaluating the Health Effects of Social Interventions team in August 2008 as a research assistant.  She worked on an evaluation project looking at a government intervention aiming to support Incapacity Benefit claimants into employment.  In September 2009 she began studying for a PhD.  The focus of the doctoral research is policy changes to Incapacity Benefit, related to the barriers to work that people currently receiving this benefit face.  In particular it is focused on Glasgow and the west of Scotland.  A qualitative component will explore perspectives of Incapacity Benefit recipients, GPs and employment advisors; another component will use longitudinal data from the Twenty-07 study to explore the work-health relationship in the west of Scotland, as well as provide a more descriptive account of twenty years of follow up of people who describe themselves as ‘unable to work due to ill health’.  The PhD is supervised by Lyndal Bond and Michaela Benzeval.