Rate My Professor Erica Cook

Erica Cook is an Associate Professor in the School of Sport Psychology and Social Science at the University of Bedfordshire, serving as Director of the Research Centre for Applied Psychology (RCAP) and Course Director for the BPS-accredited Stage 1 MSc Health Psychology programme. She coordinates the MSc Health Psychology Dissertation and MSc Health Psychology: Public Health units and acts as Senior Methodologist for the NIHR Specialist Centre for Public Health Service. Her academic qualifications include a PhD (2012) from the University of Bedfordshire on "Who uses NHS Direct? Factors that impact on the uptake of telephone-based healthcare", funded jointly by NHS Direct and the university; an MSc in Health Psychology with Distinction (2009); and a BSc in Health Psychology with First Class Honours (2008), both from the University of Bedfordshire. Cook is a Registered Practitioner Health Psychologist (HCPC: PYL32868), Chartered Psychologist (BPS: 212064), Chartered Scientist (CSci), Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH), and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She contributed to the University of Bedfordshire’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) submissions in 2014 and 2021.

Erica Cook’s research specializations include equity of access to healthcare for underserved populations, patient experiences of healthcare, technology adoption in healthcare and intervention delivery, and developing and evaluating complex interventions. Her work covers health inequalities in access to services for Roma communities and ethnic minorities, palliative and end-of-life care, barriers and facilitators to organ donation among diverse groups, urban greenspace use, weight management interventions, and child maltreatment and metabolic syndrome. She co-authored the textbooks ‘Health Psychology: The Basics’ (2020) and ‘Psychology Express: Health Psychology’. Key publications include “Barriers and facilitators of deceased organ donation among Muslims living globally: An integrative systematic review” (Al-Abdulghani et al., Transplantation Reviews, 2024), “Community readiness to address disparities in access to cancer, palliative and end-of-life care for ethnic minorities” (Wainwright et al., BMC Public Health, 2024), “Child maltreatment and metabolic syndrome: A systematic review” (Osode et al., Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity, 2024), and “Factors influencing urban greenspace use among a multi-ethnic community in the UK: The Chalkscapes Study” (Cook et al., Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 2024). With over 900 citations, she serves as Associate Editor for PLoS One, member of the Division of Health Psychology Training Committee, NIHR Public Health Research Applications Design Advisor since 2020, and reviewer for NIHR programmes and journals.