Dr Gretchen Bjornstad

Expertise

Child Health

Biography

Dr Gretchen Bjornstad is a Senior Lecturer and Co-Lead for the ARC’s Children and Young People’s Health Theme. Within this role, she is also the lead for research inclusion in child health research. Her research centres on the evaluation, implementation, and development of evidence-based interventions and health and social care service changes to improve the health and well-being of children and families, with a particular focus on special educational needs and disabilities.

She leads the SPaCE study, which examines the prevalence of mental health conditions among parent carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities, the barriers and facilitators to accessing mental health support for parent carers, and the systemic drivers of poor mental health for parent carers.

Gretchen is the co-lead for the University of Exeter Children and Young People’s Wellbeing interdisciplinary research network. She also teaches modules across the Master’s in Public Health programme, the MSc in Leading Clinical Research Delivery, and the BSc in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Exeter Medical School and serves on the Medical School Research Ethics Committee.