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Dr. Sarah Parker

Research Fellow (Public Health & Primary Care)
      
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Dr. Sarah Parker

Research Fellow (Public Health & Primary Care)

 saparker@tcd.ie

 


Dr Sarah Parker is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Health Policy and Management, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). With extensive experience leading qualitative and mixed methods research initiatives and teams, she is passionate about tackling complex social problems through direct policy and system impact. Her research covers a broad spectrum of policy issues including those related to health, homelessness and social care systems. She worked on the HRB-funded Foundations project, researching how COVID-19 impacted health system and policy reform. Currently, she leads on an HRB-EfP grant to assess the Irish Health System as well as the Government-funded `Care Leavers - 10 Years On" study. She was recently appointed Chair of the HPM/CGH research ethics committee (2024-present); elected Co-Chair of Trinity"s Academy of Postdoctoral Fellows (2024-present); awarded a place on the Aurora Women in Leadership programme (2024-2025); and is an Invited Member of the Focus Ireland Research Sub-Committee (2024-present). Sarah supervises BA, M.Sc. and PhD students. She leads on the Research Methods and Dissertation module on the M.Sc. in Health Policy and Management (2023-present); lectures on the SPHeRE PhD programme (2022-present); and lectured on the BA in Social Studies (2021-2023). She is Deputy Academic Editor of the School of Medicine Newsletter (2024-present). Prior to this, Sarah was a researcher at the Children's Research Centre, TCD, where she worked on several commissioned projects including a biographical study of women's homelessness and a qualitative longitudinal study of homeless youth and their families. Sarah holds several degrees from TCD including a PhD in Social Policy (2021), M.Sc. in Applied Social Research (2011) and BA in Sociology and Social Policy (2006). Funded by the Irish Research Council, she led an award-winning mixed methods study on family homelessness for her doctorate. She has co-authored over 30 peer-reviewed articles, reports and book chapters, achieving a h-index of 12 and 558 citations (Google Scholar). Her most recent work has been published in edited collections by Routledge, Edward Elgar and Palgrave MacMillan as well as high-impact journals including The Lancet Regional Health - Europe, Global Health Research and Policy, Housing Studies, International Journal on Homelessness, Child & Family Social Work, Journal of Family Issues, European Journal of Homelessness, HRB - Open, Frontiers in Public Health, BMC Public Health and BMC Health Services Research.
Details Date
Co-Chair, Postdoctoral Academy Committee, Trinity College Dublin 2024
Invited Member, Focus Ireland Research Sub-Committee 2024
Member, COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) 2017
Member, Trinity Research in Childhood Centre 2017
Associate Member, Women's Homelessness in Europe Network 2017
Parker, S, Schulmann, K, Bruen, C, Burke, S, Health System Reform in the Context of COVID-19: A Policy Brief Outlining Lessons from Ireland's Journey Towards the Goal of Universal Healthcare, BMC Global Health Research and Policy, 2025, Notes: [https://doi.org/10.1186/s41256-025-00407-z], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Eavan Brady, Janet Boddy, Lynne Cahill, Robbie Gilligan, Stephanie Holt, & Sarah Parker, Care Leavers: 10 years on, A Narrative Rapid Review, 2025, 1-51, Report, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Luisne Mac Conghail, Sarah Parker, Sara Burke, Examining universal access to acute hospital care in Ireland during the first three months of COVID-19: Lessons from the policy process, HRB - Open, 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Rikke Siersbaek, Paul Kavanagh, John Ford, Sara Burke, Sarah Parker, How and why do financial incentives contribute to helping people stop smoking? A realist review, BMC Public Health, 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Sarah Parker, Rikke Siersbaek, Luisne Mac Conghail, Sara Burke, Public Health Responses to Homelessness During COVID-19 in Ireland: Implications for Health Reform, International Journal on Homelessness, 3, (3), 2023, p36-52 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Sarah Parker, Luisne Mac Conghail, Rikke Siersbaek, Sara Burke, How to not revert to type: Complexity-informed learnings from the pandemic response for health system reform and universal access to integrated care, Frontiers in Public Health, 11, 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ellen Cosgrave, Aishling Sheridan, Edward Murphy, Martina Blake, Rikke Siersbaek, Sarah Parker, Sara Burke, Frank Doyle, Paul Kavanagh, Public attitudes to implementing financial incentives in stopsmoking services in Ireland, Tobacco Prevention & Cessation, 9, (9), 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Rikke Siersbaek, Sarah Parker, Paul M Kavanagh, John Ford, Sara Burke, How and why do financial incentives contribute to helping people stop smoking? A realist review protocol, BMJ Open., 12, 2022, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne, Sarah Parker, Sara Burke, Tracking aspects of healthcare activity during the first nine months of COVID-19 in Ireland: a secondary analysis of publicly available data, HRB - Open, 2022, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Young people narrating the meaning of homelessness and home. in, editor(s)L. Moran, K. Reilly, & B. Brady , Narrating childhood with children and young people: Diverse contexts, methods and stories of everyday live, London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2021, pp35 - 61, [Mayock, P. & Parker, S.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
  

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Paula Mayock, Sarah Parker, Living in Limbo: Homeless Young People's Paths to Housing, Dublin, 2017, Book, PUBLISHED
Paula Mayock, Sarah Parker, Andrew Murphy, Young People, Homelessness and Housing Exclusion, 2014, Book, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Winner of 1st place Dean of Research Award at the Multidisciplinary Research Showcase 2018
Government of Ireland Costed Extension (Principal Investigator) 2020-2021
COST grant to complete Short Term Scientific Mission 2018
Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (Principal Investigator) 2017-2021
1252 Postgraduate Research Scholarship (Principal Investigator) 2017-2017