Saoirse Nic Gabhainn is Professor of Health Promotion, Project Leader in the Health Promotion Research Centre and Co-Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborative Centre for Health Promotion Research. Saoirse has degrees in Psychology and Health Promotion from the National University of Ireland and the University of Nottingham, UK.

Within the Health Promotion Research Centre, Saoirse is responsible for research programmes in schools health promotion and among young people, and has published widely in the field of child and adolescent health, with a focus on risk (primarily drugs and sexual health) and protective (primarily social support and social network) behaviours, adolescent health inequalities, and child participation in the research process. Saoirse has conducted multiple of evaluations of school health promotion in Ireland and belongs to the wider Schools for Health in Europe network.

Since 1994 Saoirse has been Principal Investigator for Ireland with the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) network, serving on the Scientific Development Group, the Policy Development Group, the Youth Engagement Group, the International Co-ordinating Committee and chairing topic-based focus groups such as those on Risk Behaviour and Sexual Health. The Irish HBSC research team at the University of Galway has specific expertise in a wide range of health related behaviours, youth engagement, disadvantaged and vulnerable youth and the application of Geographic Information Systems to child and adolescent health. For further details on the HBSC project and the team members, and to download papers, reports, factsheets and short reports from HBSC see www.universityofgalway.ie/hbsc.

Saoirse has taught across all of the programmes offered by the Discipline of Health Promotion, with a focus on research methods and statistics well as schools health promotion and mental health and social wellbeing. She supervises research students at PhD level on a range of topics, which currently include: Breastfeeding in Health Promotion Policy and Education (Margaret McLoone), Adolescent-led evaluation of Reproductive and Sexual Health services (Ruchika Mathur), Policy and Practice Determinants of Harm Reduction Implementation (Margaret Hester), Improving determinants of nutrition provision in Homeless Services (Divya Ravikumar),and the Experience of Persisting with Breastfeeding (Teresa Meaney). She sits on the Graduate Research Committees of a range of other PhD students.

Primary research interests include health behaviour and contexts of health for children and young people, methodological developments in health promotion research, youth settings for health promotion (including schools, families and local neighbourhoods), and Participative Research Processes (PRP). I have worked to build up a research team that is collaborative, multidisciplinary, health promoting, productive and driven by a set of mutually agreed principles. My current team includes research assistants, PhD students and post-doctoral researchers. We work in close proximity and share tasks, creating a busy and vibrant atmosphere where creativity and precision are equally valued. Creativity is essential in conceptualising the research problem, ways of collaborating and in developing methodologies, but precision is required in data collection, analysis and documenting research practice. We focus on youth health promotion, and I have special interests and internationally recognised expertise in risk behaviours and sexual behaviour, disability and vulnerable children (including migrants and Travellers), diet and nutrition, schools health promotion, child participation in the research process and equity and policy translation. For more information see:

I teach across a range of pre- under- and post-graduate courses in health promotion. These include specialist certificates in Youth Health, Bachelors degrees in Childrens Studies, Health and Safety and Medicine and Post-graduate programmes in Health Promotion and Health and Safety and Ergonomics, and regularly make contributions to other teaching programmes such as the Masters in Lifecourse Studies.