Families and Intimate and Sexual Relationships

Families, intimate and sexual relationships are fundamental to health and wellbeing. The family environment, and in particular the role of parents, is fundamental in shaping the adjustment, development, future health and wellbeing of children. Intimate relationships can provide mutual support for maintenance of physical and emotional health, and are particularly protective of men’s health. Conversely, they can also be a source of aggression and violence.
Our work measures and explains mechanisms of family and intimate relationships with potential to influence health outcomes. We investigate how best to modify and intervene. Our ultimate aim is to promote wellbeing and to reduce health-related risks and adverse outcomes across the life course.
Our projects span a wide range of topics, ranging from healthy relationship initiatives to the impact of bereavement on intimate partnerships.
Workstream staff
Workstream leader
Workstream staff
Workstream students
Projects

- Prison based parenting: programme development
- THRIVE trial: Early parenting intervention
- BeST? Trial: Abuse and neglect in families
- Middle childhood socio-emotional wellbeing
- Support for mothers and child wellbeing
- Parent-child relationships in sub-Saharan Africa
- Men, Masculinities, deprivation and sexual health
- Equally Safe: A Whole Schools Approach to Gender Based Violence
- If I were Jack: sex education trial
- Experiences of abortion
- STASH: An exploratory study of a peer-led sexual health intervention in secondary schools
- HPV Vaccine acceptability study in Tanzania
- How people's own upbringing influences their subsequent parenting practices: a mixed method study of vulnerable mothers; to complement THRIVE Trial

- Maternal perceptions of media presentations of the 'parental determinism’ and the impact of this on their wellbeing
- Fathers’ experiences of adjusting to life following partner bereavement
- Informing National Policy on Parenting Programmes in Uganda
- Transferring Parenting Programmes from HICs to LICs
- Trans and non-binary experiences of sex
- Parenting and children’s overweight and obesity
- Evaluating Early Years Scotland’s work in Scottish prisons
- FGM in the UK: What can a Systems Thinking approach add to our understanding?
- Evaluation outcome measures for interventions addressing sexual function problems
- The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes & Lifestyles (Natsal)
- CONUNDRUM (CONdom & CONtraception UNDerstandings: Researching Uptake & Motivations)
