Karyn Morrissey is an associate professor whose research focuses on understanding the impact of socio-economic and environmental inequalities on health outcomes, using data both big and small.
An economist by background and having worked in a Department of Geography, her multi-disciplinary approach centres on the application of computational methodologies such as simulation models, econometric models and geo-computation models.
Karyn is interested in the science-policy interface and has been a rapporteur for an OECD Workshop on the Future of Maritime Spatial Planning and Ocean Monitoring. She was an invited speaker at the Second Irish Maritime and Energy Resource Cluster Annual Conference in Cork in 2013, and an invited keynote speaker at the National Ocean Forum in Mauritius in 2012.
Karyn has also held a University of Liverpool knowledge exchange voucher with the Health and Safety Executive, is membership secretary of the British and Irish Regional Science Association, and an editorial board member of the Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics and Marine Policy.
Increasingly frustrated by existing research in population health outcomes, Karyn is interested in moving away from cross-sectional models – which focus on just one point in time – to a life course analysis based on longitudinal and cohort datasets – which follow people over time.
Coral Communities: Building Resilience of Coral Reefs and Coastal Communities
Coral Communities is a 9 month Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project that aims to draw together a network of collaborators from the UK and Western Indian Ocean (WIO) to address evidence gaps and support the development of resilience strategies across the WIO. Coral Communities comprises an interdisciplinary partnership between academics, NGOs, a development consultant and a creative art and film-making team.
Key to this project was the role of the visual artist Dominica Williamson in developing participatory visual methods to engage with the communities to help understand their perceptions of socio-ecological resilience in their communities.
As part of the research, Prof Karyn Morrissey, along with Dominica Williamson and Mark Bryant (University of Cardiff) were hosted by MWAMBOA, a coastal community NGO in Zanzibar to (a) further develop these methods and (b) begin to understand the socio-ecological resilience of coral communities in Zanzibar, using materials and participatory visual methods.
This video provides an overview of the methods used to engage with the coral community of Fundo Island.
Sustainable Inhalational Anaesthetic Gases
The NHS spends about 50 to 60 million pounds on inhalational anaesthetic gases per year. However, approximately 98% of these gases are vented to the atmosphere. The global warming potential, for example desflurane is 2,500 times more likely to cause global warming than carbon dioxide. Fortunately, a leading tech start-up SageTech Medical has recently innovated a technology to recycle these wasted unmetabolised gases.
As part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) project, Dr Karyn Morrissey and Dr Sam Hu were collaborating with SageTech Medical to estimate the economic and environmental impacts of this new technology.
Karyn’s current funded research activities include:
Newton-Omar award: Death and disability: the vulnerability of older people in Malaysia to urbanisation and climate change (Co-Investigator)
EPSRC: Adaptation and Resilience of Coastal Energy Supply (ARCoES), with the University of Liverpool (Co-Investigator)
NCRM: ‘Innovations in Small Area Estimation Methodologies’ with the University of Southampton.
Key recent publications include:
Morrissey, K (2016). Is there a gendered role between individual and regional correlates of depression and anxiety in Ireland? The Professional Geographer: Journal of the Association of American Geographers. 68:1, 129-137, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2015.1054020
Morrissey, K, Williamson, P, Clarke, G, Daly, A and O’Donoghue, C (2015) Mental Illness in Ireland: Simulating its spatial prevalence and the role of access to services. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 42. pp. 338-353, doi:10.1068/b130054p
Morrissey, K, O’Donoghue, C, Clarke, G, Li, J (2013) Using Simulated Data to examine the Determinants of Acute Hospital Demand at the Small Area Level. Geographical Analysis, 45 (1). pp. 49-76. DOI: 10.1111/gean.12000