Staff Profile

I am a mixed methods researcher with interests in global mental health, quality of life, digital health and healthy ageing. I currently hold posts within the Evidence Synthesis team and Academic Psychiatry and act as either PI, Co-I or Lead Reviewer across a variety of projects.

Prior to this I completed my PhD in healthy ageing and mortality risk here at Newcastle following two years as a Research Assistant working on quality of life and neuropsychological function in mental health disorders.

Area of expertise 

• Global mental health
• Healthy ageing
• Quality of life
• Digital health
• Evidence synthesis

SCOPUS: Click here.

Current projects

• WHO EMF (Lead Reviewer) - two reviews for the World Health Organisation looking at the effects of radiofrequency exposure on male and female fertility outcomes.
• Prioritisation in Mental Wellbeing (Principal Investigator) - a priority setting exercise around aspects of mental wellbeing
• Cope with Covid (Co-Investigator)  - Coping behaviours used in response to the Covid-19 pandemic used by frontline workers, as well as the general public, globally.
• Global Challenges (Co-Investigator) - Mental Health Academy Network - working with a multidisciplinary group of clinical-academics from countries which differ in economic status to build a sustainable global mental health research community and facilitate joint working to tackle impact of mental health disorders across the lifespan.
• NEESAMA (Steering Committee Member) - North East England and South Asia Mental Health Alliance
• Cochrane Group reviews - including protocol development, data extraction, quality and risk of bias assessment, meta-analysis, network meta-analysis and report writing.
• FAB - First British Feasibility Study of a Future Randomised Controlled Trial of Family Focused Treatment for Adolescents with Bipolar Disorder - qualitative work looking at patient experience.
• ALFI - Adaptive Life Functioning Inventory - development and piloting of an outcome measure to detect functional adaptive change in response to interventions.
• CALM - Collaboratively Advancing Longitudinal Monitoring - the development of digital health technologies through participatory design methodology in early onset bipolar disorder.
• Approaches to the evaluation of integrated health and social care programmes - systematic review and narrative synthesis.
• Antipsychotics (Co-Investigator) - systematic review

Previous projects

• Approaches to the evaluation of integrated health and social care programmes - systematic review and narrative synthesis.
• NIRHIO - National Institute for Health Research Innovation Observatory - health technology briefings for NICE.
• INCHES - Innovations to Enhance Health in Care Homes - four rapid evidence syntheses looking at the use of technology, workforce, new models of care, and communication and engagement to enhance health and care services.
• Social relationships and health care utilisation - a systematic review.
• {react} - copy editor for {react} magazine, which is produced by Newcastle University students to disseminate scientific research to a lay audience. 
• Perceived importance of components of healthy ageing and their relationship with mortality - a systematic review of how healthy ageing is defined, qualitative work to explore the importance of various aspects of healthy ageing to academics and older people, and survival analysis of cohort data.
• Blood-borne biomarkers of mortality risk - a systematic review.
• Finding out what matters: Quality of life in autism - validating quality of life in children with autism.
• COMPIC - Neuropsychological Function and Facial Affect Recognition in Children and Young People - assessing neuropsychological function, facial affect  recognition and the family environment amongst bipolar offspring. 
• Absorbed in thought - the impact of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events.

Teaching Qualifications

• Introduction to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Parts A and B
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Current teaching

• HSC8055: Introduction to systematic reviewing and critical appraisal (https://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/modules/HSC8055)
• PSY8036 Global Mental Health
• FMS Advanced Systematic Reviewing Module

Current student projects

• BSc Psychology -  Assessing the impact of COVID-19 and coping strategies utilised by undergraduate student across the UK.
• MSc Foundations in Clinical Psychology - Risks of developing a long term psychological issue in spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease.

Previous teaching

• Statistics for Psychology (2011 - 2016)
• IT skills for Faculty of Medical Sciences Students (2012 - 2016)

Additional responsibilities

• NEESAMA Steering Group
• Wolfson Research Centre Journal Club
• Academic development of Wolfson specialist trainees
• Student supervision

• Barron Millar E, Stoniute A, Still M, Wallace S. Deciding when to make a Cochrane Review update the final iteration. In: 27th Cochrane Colloquium, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2020, Toronto, Canada: Wiley.
• Sharma A, Glod M, Forster T, McGovern R, McGurk K, Barron Millar E, Meyer TD, Miklowitz D, Ryan V, Vale L, Le Couteur A. FAB: First UK feasibility trial of a future randomised controlled trial of Family focused treatment for Adolescents with Bipolar disorder. International Journal of Bipolar Disorders 2020, 8, 24.
• Valtorta NK, Collingridge Moore D, Barron L, Stow D, Hanratty B. Older Adults’ Social Relationships and Health Care Utilization: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Public Health 2018, 108(4), e1-e10.
• Sharma AN, Barron E, Le Couteur J, Close A, Rushton S, Grunze H, Kelly T, Ferrier N, Le Couteur AS. Facial emotion labeling in unaffected offspring of adults with Bipolar I Disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 2017, 208, 198-204.
• Sharma A, Camilleri N, Grunze H, Barron E, Le Couteur J, Close A, Rushton S, Kelly T, Ferrier I, Le Couteur A. Neuropsychological study of IQ scores in offspring of parents with Bipolar I Disorder. Cognitive Neuropsychology 2017, 22(1), 17-27.
• Barron E. Live long or live well?. The Psychologist 2016, 29(3), 550-551.
• Barron E, Lara J, White M, Mathers JC. Blood-Borne Biomarkers of Mortality Risk: Systematic Review of Cohort Studies. PLoS ONE 2015, 10(6), e0127550.
• Sharma A, Camilleri N, Grunze H, Barron E, LeCouteur J, Close A, Rushton S, Kelly T, Ferrier IN, LeCouteur A. IQ in Psychopathology Free Offspring of Adults with Bipolar Disorder. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2015. Submitted.
• Barron E, Sharma A, Le Couteur J, Rushton S, Close A, Kelly T, Grunze H, Ferrier I, Le Couteur A. Family environment of bipolar families: A UK study. Journal of Affective Disorders 2014, 152-154, 522-525.
• Tavernor L, Barron E, Rodgers J, McConachie H. Finding out what matters: Validity of quality of life measurement in young people with ASD. Child: Care, Health and Development 2013, 39(4), 592-601.
• Lara J, Godfrey A, Evans E, Heaven B, Brown LJE, Barron E, Rochester L, Meyer TD, Mathers JC. Towards measurement of the Healthy Ageing Phenotype in lifestyle-based intervention studies. Maturitas 2013, 76(2), 189-199.
• Barron E, Riby L, Greer J, Smallwood J. Absorbed in thought: The effect of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events. Psychological Science 2011, 22(5), 596-601.
• Barron E, Riby LM, Greer J, Smallwood J. Absorbed in thought: The impact of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events. Psychological Science 2011, 22(5). In Preparation.
• Sharma A, Barron J, Le Couteur J, Grunze H, Kelly T, Ferrier I, Close A, Rushton S, Le Couteur A. Neurocognitive function in children of adults with bipolar disorder: a UK study. In: Bipolar Disorders: 9th International Conference on Bipolar Disorder. 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.