About me: I have an MSc Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin and have researched e-cigarettes and youth smoking at the TobaccoFree Research Institute and the interface of primary and secondary care for children with complex mental health conditions at the School of Nursing at Trinity College Dublin.
My research: My current research focuses on how mixing within neighbourhoods affects the mental health of older adults. Socioeconomic inequality at a national level and deprivation at individual and neighbourhood levels are all associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes. However, consensus regarding the effects of neighbourhood socioeconomic inequality has not yet been reached. Neighbourhood inequality may result in worse mental health (for example, due to reduced social capital or harmful comparisons to others) or better mental health (for example, due to improved services for the most disadvantaged). Older people are more likely to perform social interactions within their neighbourhood and to have accumulated exposure to neighbourhood factors during the life course, so may be more vulnerable to neighbourhood effects than younger people.
The difference my research makes: This project seeks to develop an improved understanding of the processes that translate neighbourhood deprivation and neighbourhood mixing of income and ethnicity to mental health. It will extend the evidence base by performing a longitudinal cross-country comparison between older adults in England (ELSA) and Ireland (TILDA) using marginal structural modelling.
This longitudinal study examines whether neighbourhood wealth inequality contributes to depressive symptoms in older adults. This project ultimately aims to add to evidence regarding neighbourhood mixing, with implications for social housing and services to assist older people living in deprivation.
Supervisors: Dr Stephen Jivraj and Dr Mai Stafford
Selected publications:
A full list of publications may be found on my ResearchGate profile.
Pathway: Life Course and Social Epidemiology
Location: UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
Email: keishia.taylor.17@ucl.ac.uk
Twitter: @keishia_t
ResearchGate: Keishia Taylor
