Kat’s research interests include violence prevention, specifically research which focusses on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), crime, the misuse of alcohol and management of the night-time economy. Kat has worked on a number of ACE studies, including most recently the Welsh ACE and resilience study and is currently leading the first study in the UK exploring the prevalence of ACEs in an offender population.

Kat previously worked in the Policy, Research and International Development Directorate at Public Health Wales, where she was the research lead on the Police Innovation Funded, Early Intervention and Prevention project. In post, Kat led a team of researchers who conducted a large scale research study into the response to vulnerability and risk by South Wales Police (SWP) and other agencies. This included a large analysis of safeguarding referral data held by SWP and social services, and an evaluation of ACE-informed training delivered to South Wales Police.

Kat worked for three years in the Behavioural Epidemiology team based at the Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University - a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Violence Prevention. Kat completed her PhD at Liverpool University, which explored women’s alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Scotland; this research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and The Scottish Government.

Kat is currently a PhD supervisor for Hannah Grey, The Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation (CHEME). Hannah’s PhD studentship is exploring the health and wellbeing consequences of experiencing ACEs and interventions that aim to reduce the long and short term impacts that they may have.

Twitter handle @Katharineford

Email                   k.ford@bangor.ac.uk

Phone                  01248383519

Location              Cambrian House, Wrexham