معرفی
Fiona Alderdice serves as Senior Social Scientist at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU), University of Oxford, and Professor in Perinatal Health and Wellbeing at Queen's University Belfast. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and long-standing Cochrane reviewer, she bridges epidemiological research with clinical practice in maternal-child health.
Her academic credentials include:
- BSc (Hons) in Psychology from Queen's University Belfast
- PhD in Psychology from Queen's University Belfast
Professor Alderdice's research program centers on three pillars: developing population surveys to benchmark perinatal health outcomes; creating psychological wellbeing interventions for vulnerable pregnant/postpartum populations; and conducting longitudinal studies of preterm/growth-restricted infants. Her transdisciplinary work integrates epidemiology, clinical psychology, and health services research to address systemic gaps in maternal mental healthcare delivery across national healthcare systems.
Her 2025 publications reveal intensifying focus on perinatal mental health crises, including pandemic-related anxiety trajectories, postpartum suicidal ideation epidemiology, and implementation challenges for routine mental health screening. Methodologically, she advances record-linked cohort designs and digital impact-tracking tools to strengthen evidence translation into policy.
Key recognitions include:
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- MRC HSR training fellowship (1998) supporting complex pregnancy research
With continuous research activity since 1992—including her initial NPEU fellowship and 2002 appointment at Queen's—she has secured sustained funding for perinatal mental health initiatives. Her MRC fellowship catalyzed a research trajectory examining psychosocial determinants of birth outcomes.
As core faculty in Queen's School of Nursing and Midwifery and NPEU's interdisciplinary team, she collaborates with obstetricians, midwives, and epidemiologists across the UK and internationally to develop scalable perinatal mental health interventions through the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit's policy-engaged research framework.
