People
- Professor Candace Currie OBE | Director / HBSC International Co-ordinator
- Jehane Barbour | Administrative Assistant
- Dorothy Currie | Senior Statistician
- Justine Geyer | Research Student
- Paula Grieve | Administrative Assistant
- Emily Healy | Research Administrator
- Jo Inchley | Assistant Director / Research Fellow
- Jo Kirby | Research Associate
- Kate Levin | Senior Research Fellow
- Fiona Mitchell | Research Student
- Antony Morgan | CAHRU Honorary Research Fellow
- Janine Muldoon | Research Fellow
- Becky Smith | Assistant HBSC International Co-ordinator
- Ashley Theunissen | Acting Assistant HBSC International Co-ordinator
- Winfried van der Sluijs | Research Fellow
- Cara Zanotti (Letsch)| HBSC Research Communications Officer
Jo Kirby | Research Associate
Contact Details
Phone: +44 (0)131 651 6559
Fax: +44 (0)131 651 6271
Email: joanna.kirby@ed.ac.uk
Biography
Jo completed a BSc(Hons) in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham in 2001, where her dissertation work concentrated on exercise addiction. She then went on to complete an MSc. in Health Promotion at the University of Wales, Swansea, where she based much of her work and research on physical activity and health. Her dissertation looked more specifically at cycling to school in Welsh secondary schools and she worked alongside the Department of Environmental Health at Swansea City Council to investigate current active travel trends and gender disparities. The project was entitled: “Cycling to Good Health” – Children’s Attitudes to Cycling to School – Gender Differences and Promotion Implications. Through this work she developed a new questionnaire to measure children’s attitudes to cycling to school known as the ‘Cycling to School Scale’ (CSS).
Post study she worked as a researcher at the Wessex Institute for Health Research and Development. Here she carried out systematic reviews on a wide variety of medical areas in order to inform on NHS NICE guidance in England and Wales. Such projects included ‘the clinical and cost-effectiveness of memantine in patients with moderately severe to severe Alzheimer's disease’, and ‘the clinical and cost-effectiveness of once-daily versus more frequent use of same potency topical corticosteroids for atopic eczema’. She was also involved in the writing of briefing papers which scoped areas for NHS research and development.
She is keen pursue her research interests concerning physical activity and health in children through her work at CAHRU, and will be working on the Physical Activity in Scottish Schoolchildren (PASS) study and the Active Travel across Primary-Secondary Transition project.
Research Interests
- Physical activity and health in children and adolescents
- Active commuting to school
- Transition from primary to secondary school
- Gender disparities in physical activity participation
- Questionnaire development
Activities/Projects
- Physical Activity in Scottish Schoolchildren (PASS)
- Active Travel to School Primary-Secondary Transition
Publications
Kirby J & Inchley J (2009) Active travel to school: views of 10-13 year old schoolchildren in Scotland. Health Education, 109(2), 169-183. [DOI: 10.1108/09654280910936611]
> Health Education