Dr Sharon Stevelink

Dr Sharon Stevelink is a Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. Sharon drives a research agenda exploring occupational mental health. She is interested in how working in high risk occupations such as the military, police force, fire brigade, ambulance services as well as the NHS impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of workers. Her research interests include help-seeking behaviour, occupational functioning and the evaluation of interventions among those with mental health problems. Sharon joined King’s College London in September 2012.

She is the Principal Investigator of the Occupation and PsychiaTrIc Morbidity consortiUM (OPTIMUM) which comprises a cross-disciplinary group of researchers from King’s College London and the Department for Work and Pensions. OPTIMUM aims to accelerate our understanding of mental wellbeing in the workplace by driving data linkages and using routinely collected data to answer pressing questions related to adult psychiatric morbidity in the workplace. The flagship project of OPTIMUM is a linkage of welfare, benefits and employment data from the Department for Work and Pensions with mental health electronic record data, creating the largest clinical cohort of UK adults (>400,000) referred to psychiatric services. OPTIMUM and the data linkage are funded by a strategic award from King’s Together and an Advanced Fellowship from the NIHR.

Sharon co-leads the ENABLE study. The ENABLE study explores the risk for progression from one long-term health condition to several, with a focus on socio-demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial and health factors, thereby also exploring which long-term health conditions are most likely to lead to loss of work. Data from the South East London Community Health study is used to explore these research questions.

Further, Sharon co-leads the TRIAD study, a longitudinal study focusing on how PTSD develops in UK Armed Forces personnel. This study is capitalising on the health and wellbeing cohort study that has been run successfully by KCMHR over the last 15 years. She also led on the secondary data analysis of the Airwave study, thereby exploring mental health outcomes among over 40,000 police officers and staff and a study comparing mental health outcomes among emergency responders using data from the UK Biobank.

Sharon is the co-principal investigator of the NHS CHECK study. This is one of the largest longitudinal studies in the UK exploring the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. This nationwide study includes 18 NHS Trusts and so far over 26,000 healthcare workers have already shared their experiences.

Sharon co-leads the KCL CHECK study, a longitudinal study exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the King’s College London community, thereby also providing regular antibody testing to KCL staff and postgraduate research students who are participating.

Education and training

• 2019 Fellow, UK Higher Education Academy
• 2019 Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Higher Education
• 2012 MSc Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• 2011 PhD Measuring health-related stigma in low-resource settings, VU University Amsterdam
• 2011 MSc in Management, Policy-Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health and Life Sciences (specialisation International Public Health), VU University Amsterdam
• 2008 BSc Health Sciences, VU University Amsterdam

Research interests

• Occupational mental health
• Military health
• Epidemiology
• Psychiatry
• Emergency responders
• Welfare system
• Data linkage

Teaching

• Research methods and statistics for the MSc in Psychiatric Research, IoPPN, KCL
• Research methods for the BSc in Psychology, KCL
• Systematic reviews for the MSc in War & Psychiatry, IoPPN, KCL
• War and the mind for the BSc in Psychology, KCL

Expertise and public engagement

Sharon is the co-organiser of the Veteran Research Advisory Group for the King’s Centre for Military Health Research that brings together veterans to help shape and inform the research agenda of the Centre.