Dr. Ellen Townsend

Ellen has a BA (Hons) from the University of Leeds and a PhD from the University of Nottingham. She previously worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford.

Ellen's current research interests are in mental health, self-harm and the psychology of risk and emotion

Mental health and self-harm: I have a long standing interest in social and psychological risk factors that lead individuals to harm themselves. Some of this work involves collaboration with the Nottingham Youth Offending Team and is supported by an ESRC CASE studentship awarded in conjunction with the Youth Justice Board. I have also worked extensively on the prevention and treatment of suicidal behaviour. This work has involved structured interviews with suicide attempters, epidemiological studies and systematic reviews of interventions. We are currently conducting a systematic review of research relevant to mental health in young offenders which is supported by funding from the NHS National R&D Programme on Forensic Mental Health. We have Cochrane Collaboration Systematic review titles registered for some of this work. I am member of the SHAYP (Self Harm and Young People) Managed Innovation Network directed by Marie Armstrong and am a presenter/facilitator on a local Suicide Awareness Training Programme coordinated by Dr Martin Anderson. I am an expert panel member for the Mental Health First Aid Standards Project for Self-Injury being conducted at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Risk and emotions: Current studies are investigating the roles of integral and incidental affect on risk perception and decision-making under risk. Some of this work relates to perceptions and attitudes (explicit and implicit) towards current risk issues such as GM food. This work is supported by a NERC/ESRC studentship award and a programme grant to IGBiS from the Leverhulme Trust. I am a co-investigator on the EU 6th Framework project 'Genomics and blood substitutes for the twenty-first century' led by Dr Ken Lowe in the School of Biology. I have developed a general interest in the psychological factors underpinning food preferences and Dr Nikki Pitchford and I have been awarded an ESRC CASE studentship to investigate the perceptual and cognitive factors that determine food preferences in pre-school children.

Selected recent publications

Spence, A. and Townsend, E. (in press). Spontaneous evaluations: Similarities and diffferences between the affect heuristic and implicit attitudes. Cognition and Emotion.

Townsend, E. (In press) Suicide terrorists: Are they suicidal? Suicide and Life-Threatening behavior.

Spence, A. and Townsend, E. (In Press) Predicting behaviour towards genetically modified (GM) food using implicit and explicit attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology.

Spence, A. and Townsend, E. (2006) Examining consumer behaviour towards genetically modified (GM) food in Britain. Risk Analysis, 26, (3), 657-670

Knowles, S. Townsend, E. and Anderson, M.(2006). Using ASSET data for mental health research on Young Offenders: issues and implications for researchers. Educational and Child Psychology , 23 (2), 52-61.

Spence, A. and Townsend, E. (2006). Implicit attitudes towards Genetically Modified (GM) foods: A comparison of context-free and context-dependent evaluations. Appetite, 46, 67-74.

Townsend, E. (2006). Affective influences on risk perceptions of, and attitudes toward, genetically modified food. Journal of Risk Research, 9 (2), 125-139.

Townsend, E . and Campbell, S. (2004). Psychological determinants of willingness to taste and purchase genetically modified food. Risk Analysis , 24, 1385-1393.

Townsend, E . Clarke, D.D. and Travis, B. (2004). Effects of context and feelings on perceptions of genetically modified food. Risk Analysis , 24, 1369-1384.

Haw C, Houston K, Townsend E, & Hawton, K. (2002). Deliberate self-harm patients with depressive disorders: treatment and outcome. Journal of Affective Disorders , 70, 57-65.

Townsend, E. , Hawton, K., Altman, D.G., Arensman, E., Gunnell, D., Hazell, P., House, A., Van Heeringen, K. (2001) The efficacy of problem-solving treatments after deliberate self-harm: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials with respect to depression, hopelessness and improvement in problems. Psychological Medicine,  31 , 979-988.

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