Phone:

(023) 8059 4581

Email:

L.Yardley@soton.ac.uk

Professor Lucy Yardley OBE, BSc, MSc, PhD, CPsychol

Professor of Health Psychology

Professor Lucy Yardley is Professor of Health Psychology at University of Southampton and University of Bristol.

• Director of LifeGuide Research Programme,
• Co-Director of Behavioural Science theme of NIHR BioMedical Research Centre at University of Southampton
• NIHR Senior Investigator

I have a longstanding interest in empowering patients and people in the community to take control over their illness and treatment. Currently my main research focus is on using the internet to support self-management of health. I pioneered the development of the unique ‘LifeGuide’ open source software for developing web-based interventions to support health management (www.lifeguideonline.org), which is available to a large international network of users. I then led the ‘UBhave’ programme to develop software for creating interventions for mobile phones (the ‘LifeGuide Toolbox’). My current programme of research addresses key questions such as how to maximise engagement with digital interventions and how best to integrate digital support for self-management of health with existing health promotion and healthcare services. I am addressing these questions through the development and evaluation of numerous web-based healthcare interventions funded by over £50 million from the UK research councils, NIHR, medical charities and EC. These include interventions to support weight management, physical activity, reduction of infection transmission and antibiotic over-use, and self-management of numerous long-term health conditions (including cancer, hypertension, diabetes, back pain, asthma, cognitive decline and many other health problems). Through this work I have developed the ‘person-based’ approach (see www.personbasedapproach.org ) to using mixed methods for intervention development, which has resulted in very effective interventions published in journals such as the Lancet, BMJ and Annals of Internal Medicine. In total, I have over 500 publications (Google Scholar), resulting in over 35,000 citations and an h index of 84.

My professional roles have included Editor-in-Chief of Psychology & Health (journal of the European Society for Health Psychology), core member of the NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) public health committee A, and member of numerous research funding panels for NIHR, MRC and medical charities.

During the COVID pandemic I was Co-Chair of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza – Behaviour Committee and sat on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). I was awarded an OBE in the Oct 2020 Queen’s Birthday honours, in recognition of my contribution to the COVID-19 pandemic response.