Dr Rachael Gribble is Senior Lecturer in War & Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London.

Based in the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), she is interested in understanding how occupation, and the risks, challenges, and rewards involved with high-risk jobs, impact and influence the well-being of family members such as partners, children, parents and siblings.

A member of the Garnet Families Families Matter Research Group, Dr Gribble regularly collaborates on research and outputs with international colleagues working with military or public safety families. She is also a member of the Rethinking Military Spouses Critical Research Group, a group of academics focusing on novel methods for understanding the experiences of non-serving military spouses, and the UK Psychological Trauma Society.

Dr Gribble has been involved in a number of different qualitative and quantitative studies to better understand the role of occupation in family health. Key projects include public attitudes to the military, weekly separation among Naval families (CHASE study), veteran transition trajectories, and domestic violence/(IPVA) among military families with Dr Deirdre MacManus.

She has collaborated with international colleagues on acceptance of US LGBT military families and public safety families in Canada, a work stream that continues through Garnet Families. A key theme is her work is the idea of who is considered to be a 'military family', exploring this both across policy and research.

She was recently Co-Investigator on the UK Veterans Family Study, the UK's first study of the health and wellbeing of veteran families, and on the Military Children Promote, Protect, Prevent study looking at social determinants of health among military-connected children. She was Principal Investigator on the LIFE-Q study exploring influences on alcohol and other lifestyle behaviours among military partners.

Dr Gribble is an experienced supervisor of MSc and PhD students and would be interested in supervising postgraduate research students interested in the impacts of occupation or conflict on family health or the health of women.

Research Interests

• Military Families
• Military & Veteran Health
• Women’s health
• Occupational Health
• Mixed Methods

Teaching

• Deputy Lead, War & Psychiatry MSc programme
• Module lead for Civilians and Extreme Trauma (7PCPWCIV) and the Dissertation (7PAGWRES)
• Teaches research methods and skills to MSc students (Dissertation (7PAGWRES))

Expertise & Public Engagement

Dr Gribble is the co-lead for the SCiP Alliance London Hub, along with the Royal British Legion, to improve educational outcomes for children from military families and organiser and contributor to the annual CIMVHR-KCMHR Invitational Roundtable on Military Families involving academics, practitioners, policy makers and charities.

She has ongoing engagement with key stakeholders in military and military family health throughout research projects, including dissemination and impact and regularly presents to a range of stakeholders, including politicians, policy makers, academics, practitioners, medical professionals, military personnel, military charities and military families.