Dr Clarissa Giebel PhD

Personal Statement

Dr Clarissa Giebel is Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Population Health at the University of Liverpool, and Older Adult Subtheme Lead at the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast. She is leading the Institute's Dementia Research Group and is a NIHR School for Social Care Leadership Fellow. Dr Giebel is leading national and international research on inequalities in dementia, and is the Lead of the European INTERDEM Taskforce Inequalities in Dementia. In 2019, she set up the successful and growing public-facing Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum, which enables knowledge and networking on dementia for different stakeholder groups. She is also the host of The Ageing Scientist podcast, and has jointly with her group co-produced and launched the Dementia Inequalities Game - an educational game to learn about dementia inequalities. She has published over 110 papers, including two policy briefings, in the field.

She is the Principal Investigator on a number of dementia and health inequalities projects, including funded studies by the ESRC Newton Fund (Understanding the impact of political and stressful life events on the mental health of older Colombians); Alzheimer's Society (health inequalities in dementia care in the UK and the Netherlands); NIHR (Unmet mental health needs in paid and unpaid carers); and the ODA Seedfund (exploring the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on the mental health of older adults in Uganda, Colombia, and India), and Co-I on the new NIHR Dementia & Neurodegeneration Policy Research Unit led by QMUL and Exeter.

She has led the first Covid-19 dementia study in the country, exploring the effects of social care and social service closures on the lives of people with dementia and unpaid carers living in the community. The study is published extensively, with key findings here (Impact of COVID-19 on dementia social care - Aging & Mental Health). In addition, we explored the changes in care provision during the pandemic and how safe visitation had been affected, key findings here: (Are we allowed to visit now? Age & Ageing).