Overview

Dr Rosina Cross is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with a background in health psychology and behavioural medicine. She joined the College of Medicine and Health part-time in the Primary Care research team in 2020, following working as a PhD researcher at the University of Bath on the Retirement in ACTion (REACT) Study, a community based physical activity intervention to prevent mobility-related disability for retired older people. Her work focuses on the design and process evaluation of health behaviour change interventions. She has a particular interest in better understanding processes of behaviour change, and the monitoring and assessment of intervention implementation in health interventions, with a view to improving intervention outcomes and the translation of intervention findings to real world settings.

She will complete her PhD in 2020 at the University of Bath, Department for Health. As part of her PhD she designed and conducted a process evaluation of the Retirement in ACTion (REACT) Study, a multi-centre, RCT that aims to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a community, group-based physical activity intervention for reducing, or reversing, the progression of functional limitations in older people who are at high risk of mobility-related disability. The process evaluation of REACT aimed to understand the way this physical activity intervention functioned, by exploring how the intervention was implemented, the mechanisms of impact and the role of context in mediating or moderating the intervention’s effectiveness.

She has worked on projects funded by the NIHR, including the mixed-method process evaluation and evaluation of the REACT Study. Alongside this she worked as a Research Assistant on a Peer Active, Connected, Engaged (ACE) neighbourhoods, which aims to use peer volunteering support to promote active ageing in socially disengaged, inactive older adults in Bristol. Prior to her PhD she worked on projects focusing on physical activity in children, including the NIHR funded PLAN-A project, a peer-led physical activity intervention in teenage girls. She has also worked on the British Heart Foundation Funded B-PROACTIV study a longitudinal study investigating parental influences on physical activity and screen-viewing behaviours in young children

Qualifications

• PhD Health (2021)
• MSc Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health (2012)
• BSc Genetics (2008)

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Research

Research projects

• Digital Rehabilitation Enablement in Chronic Heart Failure  (D REACH-HF), University of Exeter. Working within the Rehabilitation Enablement in Chronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) team to digitise the cardiac rehabilitation intervention, a health professional facilitated, home-based, self-help rehabilitation intervention to improve self-care and health-related quality of life in people with heart failure and their caregivers.
• REtirement in ACTion (REACT) Study, University of Bath. A multi-centre, pragmatic, two-arm, parallel-group randomised controlled trial (RCT) with an internal pilot phase. It aims to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a community, group-based physical activity intervention for reducing, or reversing, the progression of functional limitations in older people who are at high risk of mobility-related disability.
• Active, Connected, Engaged (ACE) Neighbourhoods Project, University of Birmingham. Project ACE is a 24-month pilot study using neighbourhood coordinators and activity promotion volunteers to promote active ageing in two neighbourhoods in Bristol.

Grants/Funding

2016-2019 Doctoral Scholarship, University of Bath

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Publications

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External Engagement and Impact

Committee/panel activities

• Treasurer of the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine
• Organising Committee - Changing Lives, Changing Worlds Postgraduate Conference 2017. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Bath.

Media Coverage

International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity Student and ECR Spotlight, 2019

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Teaching

• Undergraduate Quantitative Research Methods (University of Bath)
• Undergraduate Qualitative Research Methods (University of Bath)
• Undergraduate Research Design for the Social Sciences (University of Bath)

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