Dr Asma Chaabouni

Dr Asma Chaabouni is an NIHR SPCR Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) and UCL. Her research focuses on primary care mental health, health services research and the use of large-scale routinely collected healthcare data to improve care delivery and outcomes for people with complex health conditions. A former General Practitioner (GP), she brings an interdisciplinary background in medicine, psychology, epidemiology and primary care research.

During her medical studies, she developed an early interest in primary care research, undertaking quantitative research on topics including insomnia in older people, cardiovascular risk and surgical decision-making. Her research received an award at the 2019 Annual GP North African Congress. Alongside her studies, she founded and co-led the Junior Doctors Association in Tunisia (SMGT Junior), organising educational events and national conferences for GPs.

She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship through the EU Horizon 2020 ETUDE programme to undertake her PhD in Primary Care at Radboud University Medical Center. Her doctoral research examined the identification, management and healthcare trajectories of patients with persistent somatic symptoms and psychological problems in primary care. During her PhD, she developed extensive expertise in large primary care databases and epidemiological methods, including prediction modelling, multilevel analysis and longitudinal research. Her PhD work has received national recognition and have been cited in Dutch primary care guidelines. She was invited to talks to primary care research networks in the Netherlands, a podcast based on her doctoral research and the development of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). She was invited to contribute a chapter to Anxiety and Depression in Primary Care: International Perspectives, commissioned by WONCA. She was also elected as the President of the Persistent Somatic Symptoms Network, which brings together early-career researchers through regular events and opportunities for knowledge exchange

Since joining the University of Exeter in February 2025, she has secured an NIHR SPCR Postdoctoral Fellowship and contributed to collaborative research grant development. Her current work combines large-scale linked population-based datasets with epidemiological methods to investigate primary care, mental health and inequalities in healthcare, including the use of CPRD, HES and MODIFY datasets.

She has also contributed to academic leadership and research community building across institutions, including chairing cross-institutional research meetings involving academic and non-academic partners. She has presented her work at national and international conferences, including EAPM, EGPRN, WONCA, SAPC and the World Psychiatry Congress, and has contributed to peer review for journals including the BMJ and the British Journal of General Practice.

She is committed to teaching, supervision and academic development. She has taught undergraduate psychology students in mental health and MSc students in quantitative research methods for Extreme Medicine, and has supervised medical students undertaking research projects that contributed to peer-reviewed publications. She is interested in supporting students and early-career researchers to develop practical research skills and apply quantitative methods to clinically relevant questions. Students and early-career researchers interested in developing a research project in primary care, mental health or health services research are welcome to get in touch to discuss potential opportunities for collaboration and supervision.