Led by Principal Investigators, Professor Jack Lambert and Professor Walter Cullen, the Irish participants in HepCare Europe include:
Prof Jack Lambert is Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and UCD Clinical Professor at the UCD School of Medicine. He is the Director of the National Isolation Unit for Ireland and Director of the STD Clinic. He has worked extensively on HIV and Hepatitis for the last 20 years.
Prof Walter Cullen is a GP in Dublin City and Prof of Urban General Practice at UCD School of Medicine (2014-date) and previously, was Foundation Professor of General Practice at the UL Graduate Entry Medical School (2009-14). He currently leads a multi-disciplinary research team that involves UCD colleagues and other collaborations with HSE, primary / secondary care, service user representatives and international experts. It has realised in excess of 150 peer reviewed publications and over €3m in grant income.
Prof Cullen's team’s research interests include how we can best use ‘big data’ to improve the treatment of mental disorders in primary care. He is co-PI on ‘Hepcare Europe’, an EU-funded project which aims to enhance hepatitis C treatment among at-risk groups. He currently supervises one Masters and four doctoral students on topics that include primary mental healthcare and data analytics, CPD for GPs, using routinely collected data to evaluate mental health policy, and cardiovascular disease profile assessment in children of parents with early onset heart disease.
He also teachs on General Practice to students at UCD School of Medicine. In 2008, Prof Cullen led a team that established the Primary Care Teaching Network affiliated to UCD School of Medicine, which now includes over 200 general practices nationally. In 2010, that team also established the Primary Care Teaching Network affiliated to the UL Graduate Entry Medical School, which now includes over 100 practices.
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As a social psychologist Dr McCombe's research interests lie at the boundary of social psychology and primary care research. To date his research has looked at how inter-group processes influence the lived experience of socially marginalised groups and understanding how group-based processes and psychosocial interventions influence health outcomes.
His doctoral research examined how group processes influenced individuals’ experience of political violence in Northern Ireland. From June 2013-Nov 2015, he worked on a HRB funded project developing, implementing, and evaluating an intervention to optimise the identification and treatment of problem alcohol use among problem drug users in primary care.
Since Jan 2016, he has been working on a large scale European H2020 (Public Health Programme) funded project focusing on providing an integrated model for Hepatitis C virus treatment involving partnership between primary and secondary care across Europe. I am also working on a project looking at how free GP care for children under 6 has impacted on patients and practices.
Areas of interest include: Primary care research networks, hepatitis C, social psychology, social identity, social inequality.
Previously worked as a Research Nurse in Infectious Diseases at the Mater Misericodiae University Hospital. (2006 - 2009) Recently returned from Saudi Arabia where Eileen worked in Dhahran Emergency Room for six years. Eileen is currently employed as a Research Nurse in UCD working on the Hepcare Europe Project.
Carol Murphy is a Registered General Nurse with over ten years experience in the area of homelessness and addiction. She has a BSc in Community Health (DCU), MSc in Applied Social Research (Trinity College Dublin) and a Diploma in Addiction (NCL). She worked as the Research Nurse on the HepCheck Study. She is currently working as Research & Addiction nurse based in Mountjoy prison, on the Hepcare Europe study.
Gordana Avramovic is Project Manager for Hepcare Europe. She has coordinated projects for the past 8 years at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and UCD.
Davina Swan is a Research Scientist on the HepCare Europe project. Her research interests include substance use, particularly the psychological, social and cultural aspects of substance use, and the prevention and treatment of blood borne virus infections.
She also has a research interest in mental health and is currently a Cochrane Fellow working on a systematic review of professional interventions to improve the detection of adolescent depression in primary care. She completed her PhD in Psychology at University College Cork.