University College London
Dr Daisy Fancourt is Associate Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology and a Wellcome Research Fellow at University College London. Her research focuses on the effects of social factors on health, including loneliness, social isolation, social & community assets, arts and cultural engagement, and social prescribing.
Daisy’s research has been recognised with over a dozen national and international awards including from the British Science Association, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, British Academy and NHS England. Daisy has been named a BBC New Generation Thinker and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Daisy is currently a consultant to the World Health Organisation, recently publishing an evidence synthesis of 3,500 studies on arts and health that was named the Global Aesthetic Achievement of 2019. She also works closely with NHS England and Public Health England on the evaluation of social prescribing and leads the UK MARCH Mental Health Research Network, bringing together over 1300 researchers and community organisations focusing on community assets and mental health.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Daisy is leading a team running the UK’s largest study into the psychological and social impact of the virus, involving over 70,000 participants completing weekly surveys since the pandemic started, leading to a total accumulation of over 1 million surveys. The data are analysed in real time, providing weekly data to government, the World Health Organisation, and hundreds of community and third sector organisations (www.covidsocialstudy.org). To date, Daisy has authored over 100 papers and reports on mental health in COVID-19, as well as writing for prominent media outlets such as the Guardian, and appearing regularly on television and radio during the pandemic. Daisy is also leading the COVID-MINDS Network: an international network of over 130 longitudinal studies exploring the global mental health impact of the pandemic (www.covidminds.org). She is an Expert Advisor to the World Health Organisation on mental health during COVID-19, as well as sitting on the Lancet COVID-19 Commission’s Mental Health Taskforce.