Jennifer O'Connor

Jenny O’Connor was born in Cork, Ireland. She studied law (BCL) as an undergraduate at University College Cork. She then travelled and worked for almost two years in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and southern Africa before returning to Cork to do a Higher Diploma in Computer Science. On completing this she moved to Dublin where she worked as a computer programmer for two years. After another period of travel in India, she moved to London to do a Masters of Research in Environment and Development in the Geography department at King’s College London, before starting a PhD in 2004.
 
Other interests
Jenny enjoys reading, cinema, travel and watching and playing various sports.

Perceptions of trust in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK.
 
Supervisors: Prof Ragnar Lofstedt and Dr Henry Rothstein 
 
This qualitative research seeks to address the controversy surrounding the pharmaceutical industry and the nature of its relationship with its stakeholders and regulators. The reputation of the pharmaceutical industry and the phenomenon of trust (and its decline) have become inextricably bound together. Despite the national and global debate around health and healthcare, the industry that produces both life-saving and lifestyle medicines remains opaque to the general public, and indeed in many instances to health care practioners. It is the thesis of this research that this poses problems on a number of levels, not least when considering factors such as risk perception, state and individual responsibility in managing healthcare, expectations from medicines, and the wider value of medical science to society. Through an analysis of industry and stakeholder perceptions of the role, practices and values of the pharmaceutical industry through the lens of perceptions of trust, this research seeks to produce a holistic understanding of its contribution to healthcare in the UK, and an outline of policy and risk communication strategies to enhance the relationship between this most important of industries, its stakeholders, and ultimately drug consumers.
 
Research participants will be drawn from the health care professionals, pharmacists, Industry, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), regulators (MHRA/EMEA/FDA), National Health Service (NHS), National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), House of Commons Select Committee on Health, parliamentarians, the British Medical Association (BMA), medical NGOs, fund managers, the media, and medical research academics.
 
This project is funded by the ESRC and industry.