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 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'm leading and co-leading several NIHR-funded projects and am the PI on work funded by the Asthma Allergy and Inflammation Research Charity.

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 interested in taking on a PhD student although cannot provide funding at this stage.