CECAN Fellowship: Unravelling the Complexity of Rising Sexually Transmitted Infections in Ireland
Understanding and addressing the surge in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Ireland is a national priority and is a major focus of the new national sexual health strategy. The main objective of this fellowship is to generate policy-relevant insights that transcend traditional paradigms of public health research, paving the way for the design of effective and context-sensitive interventions to reduce the prevalence of STIs in Ireland, and to facilitate community involvement in this process. We will achieve this through participatory system mapping to engage partners relevant to sexual health policymaking in building an overview of the interacting factors underlying increased STI prevalence in Ireland based on our research and their experience and expertise. A recent systematic review found many examples of system mapping being used successfully in the development of public policy (Nguyen et al., 2023) and this approach has proven useful in the study of STIs but few of these studies have taken place in Europe and most have focused on HIV alone (Vujcich et al., 2023). This fellowship will support ongoing work with the Irish Department of Health funded by the Health Research Board through their Evidence for Policy programme for which Dr Noone is the Principal Investigator.
About Chris
Dr Chris Noone is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Galway. His research examines the social, structural, and psychological determinants of health and wellbeing among marginalised communities, with a particular focus on sexual health, stigma, and health inequalities – especially those that affect LGBTQ+ communities. He consistently takes a community-engaged research approach. For example, he has conducted research with MPOWER about chemsex, HIV self-testing, and mpox and he has worked with LGBT Ireland on research with LGBT+ international protection applicants. He is currently collaborating with Migrant Health Alliance, MPOWER, the Sexual Health Centre, and Youth Work Ireland to investigate the recent increases in STIs in Ireland through the HRB Evidence for Policy Programme, and with the National Care Experience Programme, COPE Galway, LGBT Ireland, and the Galway City Community Network on a HRB Applied Partnership Award-funded project on co-designing updates to the National Inpatient Experience Survey with marginalised communities.
