Rachel O'Donnell

Rachel O'Donnell is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Marketing and Health at the University of Stirling. She specializes in qualitative research with a focus on public health interventions and behavior change.

Her research interests include smoke-free home interventions, alcohol licensing and availability, no- and low-alcohol products, and gender-based approaches to health behavior change. She has a longstanding commitment to working with disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, incorporating empowering approaches that acknowledge the stigma and guilt often experienced by smoking parents.

As ISMH's public involvement lead, she actively partners with members of the public to ensure research relevance and impact. She currently leads a CSO-funded pilot RCT exploring nicotine replacement therapy for smoke-free homes and co-leads the Smoke-free Homes International Network (SHINE).

Dr. O'Donnell serves as a Senior Editor for the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, the official journal of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol (KBS).

Her methodological expertise includes interventions utilizing personalized air quality feedback, theory-driven approaches with intervention mapping, and nicotine replacement therapy applications. Her work falls within the University's research themes of Cultures, Communities & Society and Living Well.