Dr Issy Bray

​Associate Professor in Public Health (School of Health and Social Wellbeing). I currently teach on the Quantitative Health Research module (MSc Public Health and Environmental Health) and the Epidemiology of Non-Communicable Disease module (MSc Public Health). I supervise MSc dissertation students studying Public Health and Environmental Health. My background is in statistics (MSc Medical Statistics). My PhD, at the University of Plymouth, involved the application of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to modelling the relationship between maternal age and Down syndrome risk. Postdoctoral research at the International Agency for Research on Cancer used similar models to make projections of cancer incidence and prevalence. I have previously taught statistics and public health to a wide range of students at the Universities of Plymouth and Bristol, and have also worked as an epidemiologist within the Government Statistical Service.

My research interests broadly involve the application of statistics to health-related data. I have experience of working on randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, case-control studies and cross-sectional surveys. Much of my research has been in the field of mental health, from international comparisons of ‘happiness’ and ‘life satisfaction’ to suicide rates amongst military veterans. Recent work includes a Wellcome-funded review of the role of green spaces and natural environments in preventing anxiety and depression among young people in urban settings. Current work includes a collaboration with colleagues in FET on a project looking at the mental health of social media inflencers, and with colleagues in ACE on the use of virtual reality environments in improving mental health. Within HAS, I am working with ecologists on the mental health effects of listening to different urban soundscapes, and with psychologists to assess the benefits of yoga for military veterans.    

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