Laia Becares

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Social Statistics. My research interests are in studying the determinants of ethnic inequalities in health, with a focus on life course and neighbourhood effects. I am particularly interested in understanding the pathways by which the racialisation of people and places lead to social and health inequalities. This work has mostly focused on examining the association between racism and health, and looking at neighbourhood effects to examine how people, and the areas where they live, are racialised differently across ethnic minority groups (within and across countries). 

I joined CMIST in September 2010 with a 2-year ESRC/MRC Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship, where I disseminated and expanded on work I did during my PhD examining the effect of ethnic density on the health of ethnic minority people in the UK. As part of this work, I conducted a short research visit to the New Zealand Ministry of Health and the University of Otago, Wellington, to explore the ethnic density effect among Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Before starting this lecturership, I was a Joint Hallsworth/ESRC Future Research Leader working on a 4-year project that examined ethnic inequalities in child health and development in the UK, the US and New Zealand. 

I received my PhD from University College London (Epidemiology and Public Health), Master of Public Health degree from Boston University School of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences), and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Boston (Psychology). Before coming to CMIST I was a research associate at UCL''s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. I have also held research posts at Northeastern University’s Institute on Urban Health Research (Boston, MA), where I evaluated substance abuse treatment programs for Latina and African American women, and for young incarcerated Latino and African American men.

Research Networks and Beacons

• Global inequalities
• Manchester Informatics
• Data Science Institute