Caroline Kemp
PRU BehSci PPIE Strategy Group Member
Caroline is a carer for three people with diverse needs and as such has a vested interest in care and health and how services are being delivered. Since her daughter became ill, she signed up to lots of research groups as she felt research was way forward to knowing new treatments and how she could strive for the best quality of life under the circumstances. So naturally she was drawn to the work of the PRU Behavioural Science. She learned about the PRU via the Research Design Service (RDS) PANEL she was on and then she met the PRU team and joined the Strategy Group shortly after. She was very lucky to be at the launch of the PRU and she said it was then that everything in my life which had gone before suddenly clicked into place at a particularly apposite time – COVID. She thought, what is the use of having a vaccine if no one uses it? She loved doing work of vaccine hesitancy and enjoys all the topics we consider within the PRU for Behavioural Science, particularly from a carer perspective. (Mental Health, Mobility and hearing issues). She realised everything in life depends on behaviour. It was all so clear and she could see the power of this group. Also what she has learned from this group spills into her PPIE in the RDS Consumer Panel that regularly does virtual and online reviews. It also colours her work at Northumbria with students and as Co-Chair of the EBE group.