Polly Radcliffe has over twenty years of experience of qualitative research in health and social care that has focused on gender and identity including in the context of substance use treatment, maternity care and mental health care services. Her research has explored the intersectional barriers to care for groups with multiple and complex needs and how multidisciplinary care systems can respond.

Polly led the recently completed NIHR funded Stepping Stones Study, a multi-method study exploring the experience of women who use and are in treatment for using drugs in the perinatal period. She is a co-investigator on the ESRC funded Evaluation of Harm Reduction Services in Simon Community Scotland’s homelessness services. She is a co-investigator and leads the process evaluation for the NIHR funded ADVANCE-DIGITAL in Probation Study, that is a trial of an intervention for men with substance use problems who have received a community sentence for a domestic abuse related offence. She is a co-investigator on two NIHR Invention 4 Innovation studies that explore the application of technology in the continuing care of prison leavers (The PRET Study) and in the transfer from methadone to long-acting naltrexone (Build2Depot study). She was involved in a rapid qualitative study amongst people with experience of rough sleeping in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has experience of involving people with lived and living experience in research. She has led teams in accessing and engaging marginalised research participants and is expert in analysing qualitative data using thematic, discourse and narrative analysis. 

Research Interests

• Substance use, gender and identity  
• Intimate partner abuse perpetration and substance use  
• Drug policy and families 
• Qualitative methods   

Teaching

• Qualitative methods
• Substance use policy