Dr Eoin McElroy

Overview

Eoin completed his undergraduate and PhD studies at Ulster. He then held research positions at the University of Liverpool and University College London, followed by a lectureship at the University of Leicester. Eoin returned to Ulster as a lecturer in 2022. He also holds an honorary lectureship at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London.

• Twitter: @EMcElroy_90
• Research Gate: Eoin-Mcelroy
• ORCID: 0000-0001-5466-8522

Research Interests

Eoin’s work focusses on how we think about and measure mental health problems, and how factors such as poverty can impact on the wellbeing of young people. Much of his work has involved the analysis of large datasets, such as longitudinal cohort studies and administrative health records. Eoin’s work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Department of Education, and the Wellcome Trust.

Select publications include:

• McElroy, E., Herrett, E., Patel, K., Piehlmaier, D. M., Di Gessa, G., Huggins, C., ... & Patalay, P. (accepted, in press). Living alone and mental health: parallel analyses in longitudinal population surveys and electronic health records prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMJ Mental Health.
• McElroy, E., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., Karatzias, T., Vallières, F., Ben-Ezra, M., ... & Martsenkovskyi, D. (2023). Change in child mental health during the Ukraine war: evidence from a large sample of parents. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 1-8.
• Di Gessa, G. , Maddock, J.,  Green, M. J. , Thompson, E. J. , McElroy, E., Davies, H. L., ... & Patalay, P. (2022). Pre-pandemic mental health and disruptions to healthcare, economic and housing outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from 12 UK longitudinal studies. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 220(1), 21-30.
• McElroy, E., Tibber, M., Fearon, P., Patalay, P., & Ploubidis, G. B. (2022). Socioeconomic and sex inequalities in parent‐reported adolescent mental ill‐health: time trends in four British birth cohorts. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
• McElroy, E., & Patalay, P. (2019). In search of disorders: internalizing symptom networks in a large clinical sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(8), 897-906.
• McElroy, E., Belsky, J., Carragher, N., Fearon, P., & Patalay, P. (2018). Developmental stability of general and specific factors of psychopathology from early childhood to adolescence: dynamic mutualism or p‐differentiation?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(6), 667-675.
• McElroy, E., Fearon, P., Belsky, J., Fonagy, P., & Patalay, P. (2018). Networks of depression and anxiety symptoms across development. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(12), 964-973.

Research Awards

Eoin is a recipient of the British Journal of Psychiatry Editor’s Choice Award (2023) for his paper “Pre-pandemic mental health and disruptions to healthcare, economic and housing outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from 12 UK longitudinal studies” (doi:10.1192/bjp.2021.132).

Discipline & Research Leadership Positions

Eoin is an member of editorial advisory board of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, and has served as guest editor on several editions of Frontiers in Psychiatry. Eoin is also a member of a cross-cultural consortium studying irritability. He is also part of the scientific advisory network of four longstanding studies: the 1958 National Child Development Study, 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps, and the Millennium Cohort Study.

Teaching

Eoin is coordinator for the undergraduate module PSY305 (Developmental Psychology), and also contributes to PSY131 (Introduction to Psychology), and PSY340 (Advanced Research Methods). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Research Supervision

Eoin is happy to supervise research projects (from undergraduate dissertations to PhD theses) that are quantitative in nature and focus on the measurement, risk factors and/or outcomes of mental health difficulties at the population-level.

Current PhD students

• Caitlyn Rawers
• Brendan Christie (Leicester)

Administrative Roles and Memberships

Eoin is a member of the School’s Staff and Postgraduate Ethics Filter Committee.

Community Impact

Eoin has delivered a range of webinars for the ESRC as part of their data resources webinar series, which aim to help researchers identify and access existing datasets. Eoin has also delivered public talks as part of the Pint of Science festival, and he has worked with the charity Sentinus to help promote engagement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in young people.