Professor Joanne Neale

Jo Neale is Professor of Addictions Qualitative Research based within the National Addiction Centre and working across the Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. She is also Conjunct Professor in the Centre for Social Research in Health at the University of New South Wales, Australia.  

Jo is a social scientist by training and qualified as a social worker in 1989. She subsequently completed an MSc in Women’s Studies and a DPhil in Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York. Since then, she has held academic positions at the University of Glasgow, the University of York, and Oxford Brookes University, where she was Professor of Public Health. Jo joined King’s College London in 2013.  

Research Interests

• Qualitative and mixed methods addiction research  
• Homelessness and substance use 
• Drug treatment effectiveness 
• User involvement and collaborative research with people who use substances 
• Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) 
• Evaluations of recovery-oriented interventions 
• Substance use and sleep 
• Substance use, physical activity, exercise and sport 
• Opioid pharmacotherapies 
• Frequent hospital attendances for alcohol-related reasons 
• Substance use and marginalised communities 
• Online and app-based interventions for substance use disorder 

 

Expertise and Public Engagement

Jo is Commissioning Editor and Senior Qualitative Editor for the journal Addiction. She is also a member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Drug Policy, the editorial board of Health Sociology Review, and the UK ESRC peer review college. In 2013, Jo co-founded the Addiction Service User Group (SURG) in collaboration with Paul Lennon and the Aurora Project in Lambeth, London. Between 2008 and 2015, Jo was a Trustee for the Society for the Study of Addiction.  

Publications

A list of Jo's recent publications can be found on the King's Research Portal. 

Books: 

• Neale, J. (2002) Drug Users in Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave). 
• Neale, J. (ed.) (2009) Research Methods for Health and Social Care (Basingstoke: Palgrave).  
• Neale, J., Pickering, L. and Nettleton, S. (2012) The everyday lives of recovering heroin users (London: Royal Society of Arts). 

Selected papers and other journal contributions (2016 onwards): 

• Neale, J. (2016) ‘Iterative categorisation (IC): a systematic technique for analysing qualitative data’, Addiction 111, 1096-1106. 
• Neale, J., Vitoratou, S., Finch, E., Lennon, P., Mitcheson, L., Panebianco, D., Rose, D., Strang, J., Wykes, T. and Marsden, J. (2016) ‘Development and validation of ‘SURE’: A patient reported outcome measure (PROM) for recovery from drug and alcohol dependence’, Drug and Alcohol Dependence 165, 159-167. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C. and Strang, J. (2016) ‘Qualitative evaluation of a novel contingency management-related intervention for patients receiving supervised injectable opioid treatment’, Addiction 111, 665-74. 
• Neale, J., Panebianco, D., Finch, E., Marsden, J., Mitcheson, L., Rose, D., Wykes, T. and Strang, J. (2016) ‘Emerging consensus on measuring addiction recovery: findings from a multi-stakeholder consultation exercise’, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 23, 31-40. 
• Neale, J., Bradford, J. and Strang, J. (2017) ‘Development of a proto-typology of opiate overdose onset’, Addiction 112, 168-175. 
• Neale, J.*, Parkman, T.*, Day, E. and Drummond, C. (2017) ‘Socio-demographic characteristics and stereotyping of people who frequently attend accident and emergency departments for alcohol-related reasons: qualitative study’, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 24, 67-74. 
• Neale, J. and Humphreys, K. (2017) ‘Addiction Debates: challenging ideas, challenging ourselves’, Editorial note, Addiction 111, 204. 
• Neale, J., Bouteloup, A., Getty, M., Hogan, C., Lennon, P., Mc Cusker, M., and Strang, J. (2017) ‘Why we should conduct research in collaboration with people who use alcohol and other drugs’, Editorial, Addiction 112, 2084-2085. 
• Neale, J., Meadows, R., Nettleton, S., Panebianco, D., Strang, J., Vitoratou, S. and Marsden, J. (2017) ‘Substance use, sleep and intervention design: insights from qualitative data’, Journal of Mental Health 21, 1-8. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Qualitative exploration of relationships between peers in residential addiction treatment’, Health and Social Care in the Community 26, e39-e46. 
•  Neale, J.*, Tompkins, C.*, Marshall, A., Treloar, C. and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Do women with complex alcohol and other drug use histories want women-only residential treatment?’ Addiction 113, 989-997. 
• Neale, J., Vitoratou, S., Lennon, P., Meadows, R., Nettleton, S., Panebianco, D., Strang, J. and Marsden, J. (2018) ‘Development and early validation of a patient reported outcome measure to assess sleep amongst people experiencing problems with alcohol or other drugs’, Sleep 41(4) zsy013, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy013 . 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., McDonald, R. and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Improving recruitment to pharmacological trials for illicit opioid use: findings from a qualitative focus group study’, Addiction 113, 1066-1076. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., Marshall, A., Treloar, C. and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Building on feminist achievements to enhance choice for women seeking treatment’, Addiction 113, 998-1002. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., McDonald, R. and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Implants and depot injections for treating opioid dependence: qualitative study of people who use or have used heroin’, Drug and Alcohol Dependence 189, 1-7. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., McDonald, R. and Strang, J. (2018) ‘Patient views of opioid pharmacotherapy bio-delivery systems: qualitative study to assist treatment decision making’, Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 26, 570-581. 
• Neale, J., Brown, C., Campbell, A. N. C., Jones, J. D., Metz, V. E., Strang, J., and Comer, S. D. (2019) ‘How competent are people who use opioids at responding to overdoses? Qualitative analyses of actions and decisions taken during overdose emergencies’, Addiction 114, 708-718 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., and Strang, J. (2019) ‘Prolonged-release opioid agonist therapy: qualitative study exploring patients’ views of one-week, one-month and six-month buprenorphine formulations’, Harm Reduction Journal 16, 25. 
• Neale, J., Parkman, T. and Strang, J. (accepted in press) ‘Challenges in delivering personalised support to people with multiple and complex needs: qualitative study’, Journal of Interprofessional Care. 
• Neale, J., Grivska, K., Meadows, R., and Nettleton, S. (accepted in press) ‘“I don’t stress about it like I used to”: perceptions of non-problematic sleep amongst people in residential treatment for substance use disorders’, Journal of Substance Use. 
• Neale, J., Tompkins, C., and Strang, J. (accepted in press) ‘Depot buprenorphine injections for opioid use disorder: Patient information needs and preferences’, Drug and Alcohol Review.