Lorna O'Doherty

Lorna O'Doherty received her BA (Hons) in Psychology from University College Cork in Ireland in 1999, and her PhD on the psychology of neurological disorders from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2007. She worked in primary care based research at the University of Queensland from 2005-2007. An appointment at the Department of General Practice, Melbourne Medical School (The University of Melbourne) saw her develop a focus in the area of violence against women and children. Lorna is an honorary member of The University of Melbourne. She has published widely on the subject of intimate partner violence and health, including randomised trials, systematic reviews and qualitative studies into risk and resilience. She is a senior research fellow within the Centre for Advances in Behavioural Science at Coventry University and member of the Violence Prevention, Resilience and Justice research group, is a member of the University's internal REF panel and is on the editorial board of PLOS ONE.

My research is concerned with intimate partner violence and sexual violence as major public health problems globally. I am committed to maximising the role of health providers, and health care settings, in supporting those who have experienced partner or sexual violence. My recent work looks at different community and health care-based interventions for women survivors of abuse and I have led Cochrane Reviews and RCTs in this area. I am chief investigator on an NIHR (Health Services and Delivery Research Programme) grant to evaluate Sexual Assault Referral Centres in England and undertake a cohort study of health, wellbeing and costs for adult and children survivors of sexual assault and rape (MESARCH project).