Maggie Thurer is a PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London.

Maggie is exploring how a new crisis planning tool can be implemented most effectively in the perinatal period to support women with a history of severe mental illness. Her PhD is funded through the ESRC London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Program; she is supervised by Prof Claire Henderson and Dr Abigail Easter.

Maggie’s research focuses on Advance Choice Documents (ACDs), a tool used in care planning that allows people with severe mental illness to set out their care and treatment preferences for when they are in crisis or need hospital admission.

The primary aim of her research is to explore how ACDs can be used most effectively to support women with a history of severe mental illness when they become pregnant and in the first year after they give birth - a period during which their risk of relapse is significantly increased.

Prior to undertaking her PhD, Maggie worked across a range of public health, mental health and criminal justice settings in New York City and in London, including the New York City Department of Health and NHS mental health services in east London.

She earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Research interests

• Perinatal Mental Health
• Psychiatric Epidemiology