Leena Ali
Research Assistant
Profile
Biography
Leena is a PhD student and part-time Research Assistant based in the Department of Health Sciences, where she is contributing to several projects within the department’s Family Wellbeing Team.
Leena’s PhD project focuses on developing and testing the acceptability and initial impact of a waterpipe/shisha smoking intervention in the UK. Her project explores how shisha's cultural significance should be considered within research and intervention development. This work builds on her prior quantitative and qualitative research into the sociocultural perceptions and behavioural determinants of waterpipe smoking among ethnically marginalised communities in the US.
Leena’s research interests broadly include designing and evaluating behavioural change interventions; cultural and social behavioural determinants; methods of integrating public and behavioural health into primary healthcare systems; and increasing representativeness, inclusivity, and cultural humility in research. She has several years of experience promoting and advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in higher education in the United States.
Qualifications
-
MPH, Health Behavior Concentration - Brown University (US
-
BSc in Health Sciences, Dual Minor in Bioethics and Women’s and Gender Studies - Merrimack College (US)
Research
Projects
-
PhD Project: The Yorkshire Shisha Study: Developing and testing a culturally humble shisha smoking intervention that would be relevant to young adults who consider shisha to be part of their culture.
-
Qualitative Evaluation of the Incredible Years Toddler Programme: a group-based intervention that provides tools and strategies to promote children’s social and emotional development
-
Scoping review on the use of routine data to evaluate the effectiveness of early years interventions
-
Systematic review on the association between smoking and long-COVID