Contact
Biography
Dr Eithne Heffernan is a Senior Research Fellow in the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and the NIHR School for Primary Care Research in the University of Nottingham. Her current research examines co-existing dementia and hearing conditions, including hearing loss and tinnitus. She leads a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership to generate priorities for future research about co-existing dementia and hearing conditions. She also leads the co-design of a toolkit to improve the inclusion of under-served groups in dementia and hearing research, which is funded by the NIHR Clinical Research Network East Midlands and the NIHR Nottingham BRC.
She has been awarded an NIHR Three Schools Dementia Career Development Award and an NIHR School for Primary Care Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. The latter supports the co-design of an intervention to improve primary care services for adults with hearing loss, including those with complex needs.
Her previous research examined social isolation in adults with hearing loss. She developed and validated outcome measures to assess this construct, including the Social Participation Restrictions Questionnaire (SPaRQ). She has also conducted research with the National Ambulance Service of Ireland to identify core outcomes for Community First Response for pre-hospital emergencies, as well as to evaluate their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She sits on the INTERDEM Academy Management Board, which supports the career development of Early Career Dementia Researchers throughout Europe. She advocates for improved dementia awareness and services as part of the Dementia: Understand Together Campaign Working Group (National Dementia Office, Ireland) and the Dementia Carers Campaign Network (Alzheimer Society of Ireland). In addition, she has supervised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Expertise Summary
Skills
Psychometric analysis
Questionnaire development and validation
Qualitative research
Co-design / co-production
Patient and Public Involvement/Engagement (PPIE)
Topics
Hearing loss
Dementia
Social isolation
Outcome measurement
Psychology
Prehospital care
Health inequalities / under-served communities