Dr. Alex Clarke-Cornwell

Current positions

Reader in Public Health Epidemiology

Biography

Alex is a Reader in Public Health Epidemiology and has worked at the University of Salford since 2008: her previous roles include Lecturer in Public Health, Research Fellow, and Graduate Teaching Assistant. 

She has a first degree in Mathematics and a Masters in Statistics; her PhD was entitled 'Sedentary behaviour, work and health-related outcomes: the application of empirically derived accelerometer cut-points to data from the Health Survey for England'.

Alex has been involved in a range of research projects that have used her experience of epidemiology and statistics. These include for example, studies relating to the burden of musculoskeletal disease in the UK, coding in general practice research databases, and evaluations of uptake of cardiovascular health checks in North West England. More specifically, her current research interests focus on the associations between sedentary behaviour and health-related outcomes in the workplace, and she has presented this research at a number of international conferences.

Work from Alex’s recent study, ‘The effectiveness of the SMArT Work & Life intervention for reducing sitting time in office workers’, led by Dr Charlotte Edwardson (University of Leicester), has recently been published in the British Medical Journal. NIHR-funded randomised controlled trial This study aimed to determine the long-term effectiveness of a multi-component behaviour change intervention (when provided with and without a height-adjustable desk) for reducing daily sitting time in office workers (in Leicester and Greater Manchester), when compared to no intervention (ISRCTN). 

Alex is also interested in population levels of physical behaviour and was part of a project with European colleagues as part of the consortium or the Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity (DEDIPAC) Knowledge Hub: this project used accelerometer data from national surveys to describe sedentary time and physical activity from Four European countries.

Alex is the Co-Chair for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Panel for the Centre for Health Sciences Research at the University of Salford and is on the Board of Directors for the International Society for the Measurement of Physical Behaviour.  Other research roles include: member of The Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting, and Sleep consortium; Chair of the Social Media Committee (International Society for the Measurement of Physical Behaviour); Review Editor on the Editorial Board of Physical Activity in the Prevention and Management of Disease (speciality section of Frontiers in Sports and Active Living); she is currently supervising four PhD students.

Areas of research

Sedentary behaviour, Physical activity, Epidemiology