Rate My Professor Sarah Blower

Sarah Blower is an Associate Professor of Child Development and Family Wellbeing and a Chartered Psychologist in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She earned a BSc in Psychology (Hons) and a PhD from the Department of Social Policy, both at the University of Bath. Her career spans a decade as a researcher at Dartington Social Research Unit, followed by roles in the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York, progressing through research associate, research fellow, lecturer, and senior lecturer positions. Currently, she leads the Family Wellbeing Team within the Public Health and Society Research Group, serves as Programme Leader for the MSc Health Research, and holds module leadership for Qualitative Health Research. She is a member of the Department of Health Sciences Research Degrees Committee, Contract Research Forum, and Disability, Long-Term and Chronic Health Conditions steering group. Blower leads the Best Start topic in the Early Life and Prevention workstream of the Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration and is the Evaluation Workstream Lead for the Bradford Better Start Innovation Hub.

Her research specializations encompass the design, adaptation, implementation, and evaluation of complex interventions targeting infant and child mental health, parenting, family wellbeing, and reduction of socioeconomic inequalities in child development. She employs diverse methodologies, including randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, systematic reviews, process evaluations, and qualitative methods. Key projects under her leadership include the STRIVE study to enhance access to parenting interventions, SPIRE evaluation of Start for Life prompts, FINCH feasibility trial of Forest Schools, Ready to Relate intervention evaluation, Me and My Baby questionnaire development, and BiBBS ACHIEVE cohort enhancement. She has secured funding from NIHR, ESRC, DfE, and Nesta, including an ESRC Impact Accelerator Fellowship for collaborations with Chance UK and a DfE grant for the Step Change evaluation of services for adolescents on the edge of care. Notable publications comprise 'Do socioeconomic inequalities contribute to the high prevalence of child developmental risk in an ethnically diverse, socioeconomically disadvantaged population? A Born in Bradford's Better Start (BiBBS) study' (2026, BMJ Paediatrics Open), 'Reimagining early years services to address childhood inequities: learning from the Born in Bradford evaluation of a Better Start Bradford' (2026, BMJ Paediatrics Open), 'An assessment of the teacher completed "Early Years Foundation Stage Profile" as a routine measure of child developmental health' (2025, PLOS ONE), and contributions to the E-SEE trial on Incredible Years programmes (2021). She serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology and holds memberships in networks such as the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology, International Network for Research on Inequalities in Child Health, and Co-production Network for Wales. Her work fosters collaborations with charities, local authorities, and health services to scale impactful interventions.