Craig Smith

Name: Craig Smith

Contact Number: 01 700 7441

Email address: craig.smith57@mail.dcu.ie

Room Number: A247A

Qualifications to date: BSc Sports Science and Health (DCU), MSc Clinical Exercise Physiology (LJMU)

Research Title: The design, development, and evaluation of LifeLab; an interactive and engaging health literacy lab experience for adolescents from socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.

Year Commenced: 2019

Anticipated year of completion: 2022

Supervisors: Dr. Sarahjane Belton & Dr. Johann Issartel.

Research Summary:

Health literacy (HL) is the ability to find, appraise, understand and apply information to promote health and wellbeing. Adolescence has been identified as a window of opportunity to improve HL and promote healthy choices as lifestyle behaviours are developed and embedded during this period. Schools have been recognised as the ideal setting for health promotion, however school-based health interventions have had mixed levels of success due to a lack of alignment with the school¡¯s core objectives and culture. In order to increase intervention engagement and effectiveness, my study aims to design, develop and evaluate a lab-based HL intervention with adolescents and teachers from disadvantaged schools, and the existing literature. 

Acknowledgements: The Irish Heart Foundation & Irish Research Council