Unit's epidemiologist completes his Phd!

Tim Hobbs, a researcher here at the unit, completed and defended his dissertation this month at the University of Bath. Congratulations Dr. Hobbs!

Hobbs joined the unit in the summer of 2005, alongside co-director Michael Little to develop and apply the Social Research Unit's epidemiological tools for measuring the well-being of children in communities. At the same time, Hobbs enrolled in the Unit's Phd programme, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Little and Professor Ian Butler at the department of Social Policy, Bath University.
 
The Unit would like to congratulate Dr. Hobbs in the completion of his Phd!! The title of the dissertation is "Risk, resilience and stress: contributions to the development of services for children" and examines childhood stress processes and the way in which a child’s context influences these. The following is an abstract from the text:
 
Abstract:
Some children suffer impairments to their health and development following adversity, yet others 'bounce back' and some even 'bounce forward'. The thesis explores the mechanisms underpinning resilience to risk, specifically children's physiological and psychological stress processes in response to the inevitable risks they face during development. Rather than unquestioningly seeking to reduce all risks, it is argued that policy and practice efforts may harness inevitable risk as a whetstone for children's development.