Dr Felix Naughton

Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology at University of East Anglia (UEA)

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Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology, School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia
Senior Research Associate, Department of Public Health & Primary Care, University of Cambridge

Dr Felix Naughton is a Registered Health Psychologist (Health and Care Professions Council), a chartered member of the BPS and a full member of the Division of Health Psychology (DHP). As part of his clinical practice he worked as a smoking cessation counsellor specialising in supporting pregnant smokers. He is also a member of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) and is the convenor of Synergy, a subdivision of the EHPS set up to promote networking and collaboration among Health Psychologists across Europe http://www.ehps.net/synergy/. He currently serves on the Standing Conference Scientific Committee for the DHP (2012-2014) and the Scientific Committee for the EHPS (2015).

Felix’s research interests primarily lie in understanding how to change health behaviours, particularly smoking and smoking during pregnancy. He is specifically interested in the use of tailoring in behaviour change interventions and the use of new technologies in health care and health promotion, particularly mobile phones. During his PhD he developed an automated computer tailored smoking cessation self-help programme for pregnant smokers which delivered support primarily via SMS text messages (MiQuit www.miquit.co.uk). He is currently a co-investigator in an NIHR funded programme of studies looking at improving the effectiveness and reach of NHS support for smoking cessation in pregnancy. This includes further refinement and evaluation of MiQuit. Recent work also includes the iQuit in Practice trial which evaluated a tailored written and text message smoking cessation support system for smokers attending level 2 smoking cessation support at their GP surgery. Recently Felix obtained funding from the Medical Research Council to develop and refine a novel smoking cessation smartphone sensing app (QSense) which delivers behavioural support triggered by real-time events, in collaboration with computer scientists Neal Lathia and Cecilia Mascolo.

Felix is a module leader for a health promotion module for the University’s MPhil in Public Health and is a course and thesis supervisor. Within the University he supervises and teaches undergraduate students studying psychology. He co-supervises PhD student Silja-Riin Voolma.

Felix graduated with a BSc Psychology in 2000 at the Nottingham Trent University. He then worked as a database administrator and IT technician for the University of Manchester for several years until he returned to academia by completing an MSc in Health Psychology (2005) at the University of Bath. Felix joined the Primary Care Unit in 2005 and completed his Cancer Research UK funded PhD in 2010. Felix completed the British Psychological Society’s Stage 2 qualification in Health Psychology in 2010 alongside his PhD to become a chartered Health Psychologist. Felix is also an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Nottingham.

  • 21 April 2016, 6pm

    Behaviour and Health Research Unit Annual Lecture 2016

    This year's Behaviour and Health Research Unit (BHRU) Annual Lecture will be delivered by Linda Bauld, Professor of Health Policy, Director of the Institute for Social Marketing, and Dean of Research at the University of Stirling. The subject will be "Electronic cigarettes: a disruptive technology?"