Melda Lois Griffiths
Research student, School of Psychology
- griffithsml4@cardiff.ac.uk
- Tower Building, 70 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT
- Siarad Cymraeg
Overview
My research to date has focused on how the food environment influences the food choices people make within them. People and the environments in which they exist interact in complex ways. Through influencing contextual factors within these environments, my research explores how behaviour can be influenced for the better in field-based trials, and tries to provide a better understanding of the circumstances that can foster healthier behaviour, and those that can unintentionally foster less healthy behaviour.
Healthy Vending
In a collaboration with the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Public Health Wales and their vending provider, I have run two hospital-based randomised controlled trials on healthy vending, to evaluate an intervention adopted in the Welsh hospital healthy vending directive. We used sales data from vending machines and a hospital shop to evaluate the impact of completely replacing unhealthy products, and introducing NHS labels within machines. I have also run several online studies exploring health labelling and its impact on consumer product evaluations.
Behavioural Spillover
My experience of applying behaviour change principles to the environments in which people make choices has also helped me develop a skillset that lends itself well to research relating to environmental psychology. Through undertaking a placement with Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh, I gained experience of collecting data measuring pro-environmental behaviours and behavioural spillover. Inspired by my placement, I have conducted a series of experiments exploring the behavioural spillover of food choices, asking whether healthy choices can licence subsequent less healthy behaviours, and whether less healthy choices can lead to subsequent compensatory healthy behaviours.
Research
Research interests
Health behaviour change, behavioural spillover, health labelling, health interventions, health equity, pro-environmental behaviours
Research collaborators
Prof Jacky Boivin
Eryl Powell
Lucy Usher
Research placements
- ESRC funded three-month placement at Public Health Wales as a Behaviour Change Research Associate (Nov 2019 – January 2020):
- Reviewed extant literature on the in-store promotion of unhealthy food to help inform the development of Welsh Government’s Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales strategy launched in 2019/20
- Collaborated with Aneurin Bevan Gwent Public Health consultant supporting the preparation of a Blaenau Gwent Public Services Board report on food insecurity
- Reviewed academic and grey literature from Wales and beyond on child fruit and vegetable intake to help inform Public Health Wales’ “10 steps to a Healthy Weight” programme of work
- Two MSc research placements:
- Researching moral licensing in pro-environmental and health behaviours in a Qualtrics study, running correlations on pro-environmental behaviour and self-regulation scores from large-scale CASPI study data, and reporting findings to research group (supervised by Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh)
- Investigating emotional image processing using eye tracking and pupillography (supervised by Prof Bob Snowden and Dr Aimee McKinnon)
Teaching
Cardiff University School of Psychology:
- Drop in advisor for UG Year 1 Stats course (Autumn Semester 2017, 2018 and 2020)
- Stats drop in advisor for UG Year 3 (Spring Semester 2020 and 2021)
- Practical assistant for UG Year 2 Practical course (Autumn Semester 2017 & 2020; Spring Semester 2020 & 2021)
- Advisory role guiding four UG Year 3 Final Year Projects (Autumn & Spring Semesters 2017 - 2018; Autumn & Spring Semesters 2019-2020)
Cardiff University School of Continuing and Professional Education:
- Pathway to Healthcare course (Public Policy for Health module) (March 2017)
- Invited to present my research and demonstrate its relevance to public health policy to a returning-to-education mature student cohort
Funders
Cardiff University School of Psychology / Ysgol Seicoleg Prifysgol Caerdydd
ESRC
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board / Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Aneurin Bevan
Research group
Thesis
The study of food choice in naturalistic settings
Funding source
Cardiff University, ESRC & Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Supervisors
Publications
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