Ben Ainsworth

I'm interested in how to help people with chronic health conditions (primarily respiratory disease, although I also work with other conditions) using non-pharmacological treatments. I'm Deputy Director of the Bath Centre for Mindfulness and Compassion.

I started research with the MRC/ESRC, looking at how psychological interventions (like mindfulness) changed cognitions and emotions for people with anxiety. I then started working with people with asthma, working to understand their asthma in order to develop effective psychological and behavioural interventions, spending 2 years as an NIHR Postdoctoral Fellow with the NIHR School of Primary Care.

A lot of my research uses digital technologies (apps and websites) in order to help people with respiratory disease, and this has lead to another research interest in developing new analytical frameworks to measure and understand how (and why) people 'engage' with treatments, and how treatments can be optimised accordingly.

I co-lead the Germ Defence study - a digital intervention to improve infection control behaviours in the home. Germ Defence was one of the UK government funded projects to change behaviour and halt the spread of COVID-19. It's been used by more than 100,000 people in the UK and translated into 25+ languages.

I teach both undergraduates and post-graduates, although mainly the MSc Health Psychology course, in particular developing an understanding of target populations to develop effective interventions.

I am currently able to supervise PhD students.