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Professor Vanessa Cooper

Professor Vanessa Cooper

Senior Research Fellow
E: v.cooper2@bsms.ac.uk
Location: Watson Building, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Brighton Falmer campus, BN1 9PH

Research areas: Illness and treatment perceptions and their impact on adherence; Co-design of interventions for people with long-term conditions; HIV, ageing and multimorbidity, including models of care and patient experience; Digital interventions to support adherence and self-management

Biography

Vanessa Cooper has more than 25 years’ experience in health psychology, behavioural medicine, and patient-centred research. She has led and contributed to NIHR- and industry-funded programmes in HIV, multimorbidity and digital self-management. Her research interests are broad, spanning patients’ perceptions of illness and treatment, adherence, and the co-design and evaluation of patient-centred interventions and models of care. 

Research

Vanessa’s research focuses on how people understand illness and treatment, and how these beliefs shape medication adherence, self-management, and engagement with healthcare services. Much of her work has centred on long-term conditions, HIV and ageing, and multimorbidity, with a particular emphasis on developing and evaluating patient-centred interventions and models of care.

Her research interests include:

  • Illness and treatment perceptions and their impact on adherence
  • Co-design of interventions for people with long-term conditions
  • HIV, ageing and multimorbidity, including models of care and patient experience
  • Digital interventions to support adherence and self-management

Selected publications

Nixon, E., Cooper, V., Donetto, S., Youssef, E., & Robert, G. (2023). Co-designing health services for people living with HIV who have multimorbidity: A feasibility study. British Journal of Nursing, 32(11), S15–S21. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2023.32.11.S15

Youssef, E., Wright, J., Davies, K., Delpech, V., Brown, A., Cooper, V., Sachikonye, M., & de Visser, R. (2023). Factors associated with HIV testing in people aged ≥ 50 years: An integrated qualitative analysis of patients and healthcare providers. Therapeutic Advances in Infectious Disease, 10, 20499361231186873. https://doi.org/10.1177/20499361231186873

Youssef, E., Wright, J., Davies, K. A., Delpech, V., Brown, A., Cooper, V., Sachikonye, M., & de Visser, R. (2022). Factors associated with offering HIV testing to people aged ≥ 50 years: A qualitative study. International Journal of STD & AIDS, 33(3), 289–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/09564624211059369

King, K., Horne, R., Cooper, V., Glendinning, E., Michie, S., & Chalder, T. (2021). The development of an intervention to support uptake and adherence to antiretroviral therapy in people living with HIV: The SUPA intervention. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 11(8), ibab104. https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibab104

Chan, A. H. Y., Cooper, V., Lycett, H., & Horne, R. (2020). Practical barriers to medication adherence: What do current self- or observer-reported instruments assess? Frontiers in Pharmacology, 11, 572. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.00572

Pool, E. R. M., Cooper, V., Youssef, E., Wright, J., Skittrall, J., Blatch, O., Fisher, M., & Smith, H. (2019). Use of a retrospective methodology to examine the process of care surrounding serious medical events in HIV-positive patients: A feasibility study. Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, 18, 2325958219868747. https://doi.org/10.1177/2325958219868747

Glendinning, E., Spiers, S., Smith, J., Anderson, J., Campbell, L., Cooper, V., & Horne, R. (2019). A qualitative study to identify perceptual barriers to antiretroviral therapy (ART) uptake and adherence in HIV-positive people from UK Black African and Caribbean communities. AIDS and Behavior, 23, 2514–2521. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-019-02670-x

Cooper, V., Clatworthy, J., Harding, R., Whetham, J., & EmERGE Consortium. (2019). Measuring empowerment among people living with HIV: A systematic review of available measures and their properties. AIDS Care, 31(7), 798–802. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2018.1537464

Lycett, H. J., Raebel, E. M., Wildman, E. K., Guitart, J., Kenny, T., Sherlock, J.-P., & Cooper, V. (2018). Theory-based digital interventions to improve asthma self-management outcomes: Systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(12), e293. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.9666

Cooper, V., Clatworthy, J., Whetham, J., & EmERGE Consortium. (2017). mHealth interventions to support self-management in HIV: A systematic review. The Open AIDS Journal, 11, 119–132. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874613601711010119