Profile

Biography

Dr Amanda Mason-Jones is a public health specialist and epidemiologist who leads the Master of Public Health (MPH) postgraduate programme at York. She is currently senior lecturer in Global Public Health at the Department of Health Sciences.

Amanda has a PhD in injury epidemiology and an MPH, both from the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Health Services Research from the Trent Institute for Health Services Research. She held academic posts at the University of Nottingham and the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosh in South Africa.

Amanda's research and publications focus on interventions to improve sexual and reproductive health, to promote safety and wellbeing and to prevent injury particularly for children and young people. She is a mixed methods researcher with expertise that includes evidence synthesis, experimental evaluation of complex interventions and qualitative methods.

Amanda is interested in public engagement and has recently produced and written the script for a short film "Jane’s Story 2014" about the chronic health needs of adolescents.

Link to Jane's Story video.

Qualifications

• PhD in public health and injury epidemiology - University of Nottingham
• MSc in Health Services Research - Trent Institute for Health Services Research
• Master in Public Health (MPH) - University of Nottingham
• Postgraduate certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) - University of Nottingham
• BA (Hons) in Sociology and Psychology - University of Lancaster
• Registered General Nurse (RGN-postgraduate course) - University of Nottingham
• Registered Health Visitor (RHV) - Nottingham Trent University
• Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education (Public health nursing) - Nottingham Trent University

Departmental roles

• MPH postgraduate programme lead
• Member of Research Governance Committee
• Member of Dissertation Development Committee

Research

Overview

Amanda's research interests are in sexual and reproductive health, safety promotion and wellbeing and injury prevention. She has been specifically working in the areas of intimate partner violence prevention, and reproductive health issues for young people ‘on the move’ and in interventions for improving wellbeing through intervening in the early years.

Recent work on school-based programmes to reduce HIV, STIs and pregnancy

Cochrane review: School-based interventions for preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy in adolescents
The Conversation: Keeping girls at school may reduce teenage pregnancy and STIs – but sex education doesn’t

Projects

• ‌Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of adolescents experiencing multiple displacement in Zimbabwe
• NIHR PHR: Enhancing Social-Emotional Health and Wellbeing in the Early Years: A Community-based Randomised Controlled Trial (and Economic) Evaluation of the Incredible Years Infant & Toddler (0-2) Parenting Programmes
• SCORe Project: using Sonification to COmmunicate health Risk data
• HEIF Funding: Public health knowledge exchange to explore young people's vulnerability and resilience

Research group(s)

• Public Health and Society

Available PhD research projects

Interested PhD candidates with proposals related to sexual and reproductive health, violence and injury prevention, global public health (eg. HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB) are welcome to contact Amanda.

Publications

Selected publications

Report: NICE guideline [NG68]: Sexually transmitted infections: condom distribution schemes, contributing author through the Public Health Advisory Committee, Condom Distribution Schemes

Full publications list

• Amanda Mason-Jones' publications

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Contributes to undergraduate midwifery and child health programme teaching

Postgraduate

• Leads MPH programme
• Leads Global Public Health module
• Contributes to Infection and Disease
• Contributes to Qualitative Methods Applied to Health Research
• Dissertation supervisor for Master of Public Health
• Supervision of Postdoctoral Research Associate
  • Dr Aisha Akeel: Exploring global empowerment frameworks to improve the health and wellbeing of young people
• Supervision of PhD students:
  
  • Mashael Hobani: Gestational Diabetes in Saudi Arabia (funded by Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health)
  • Jenny Loggie: Public health approaches to the prevention of child sexual exploitation (Self funded)
  • Xola Potelwa: Determinants of uptake of the HPV vaccination programme in Uganda and the UK (Funded by Sexually Transmitted Infections Research Foundation (STIRF))
  • Luis Beltran: The cost and impact of adolescent pregnancy in Mexico (Funded by Consejo Nacional de Cienca y Tecnologia (CONACYT))

Amanda is a mixed methods researcher with expertise in injury prevention, public health and epidemiology. She is willing to supervise projects with a broad focus on sexual and reproductive health and injury prevention. Specific areas of interest include adolescent health, male sexual health, child sexual exploitation, sexual violence and intimate partner violence prevention. Favoured approaches for masters’-level projects are systematic reviews (both quantitative and qualitative), secondary data analysis of datasets (both quantitative and qualitative). She has some ongoing projects in the above subject areas that may suit students who are taking appropriate modules. For those wishing to undertake a PhD, projects can be developed around the above topic areas and a range of methods, including randomised controlled trials, are possible.

External activities

Memberships

• The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Public Health Advisory Committee: Condom Distribution Schemes
• Member of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
• Steering group of WUN global public health challenge

External Positions

• Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Adolescent Health Research Unit, University of Cape Town, South Africa 
• Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at the Division of Community Health, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

Editorial duties

• Associate editor for BMC International Health and Human Rights
• Journal reviewer for a number of public health journals including AIDS and Behaviour, BMC Public Health and the Journal of Adolescent Health 
• Reviewer for NIHR public health research (PHR) programme and Humanitarian Innovation Fund

Invited talks and conferences

• School-based interventions for reducing HIV, STIs and pregnancy in adolescents: What’s the evidence. Health Evidence Webinar. McMaster University, Canada. March 2017.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCeIEQ4OTCc&feature=youtu.be.
• International Trends in MPH education. Future Developments in Public Health Training in Switzerland, Zurich, 2016.
• Female Genital Mutilation. World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vancouver, Canada, 2015.
• School-based HIV prevention programme increases knowledge about condoms, procurement of contraception and reduces intimate partner violence among young adolescents Cluster randomized controlled trial in Western Cape, South Africa. IAS Conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, Vancouver, Canada, 2015.
• Predictors of Intimate Partner Violence perpetration among school students in South Africa. International Congress of Applied Psychology, Paris, France, 2014.
• Sexual behaviour among adolescent survivors and perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Sexual Violence Research Institute Forum,Bangkok, Thailand, 2013.