After 20 years as a secondary school teacher, Clair returned to academia to undertake the MSc in Gastronomy at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. The first of its kind in the UK, the degree gave Clair a grounding in the psychosocial and cultural meanings of food and food systems. Her MRC funded PhD at the SPHSU at the University of Glasgow focused on the meanings of food in Scottish prisons. Awarded in 2022, Clair's PhD drew on qualitative interviews with Scottish Prison Service catering managers and men in custody in Scottish prisons.
Clair has a long-standing interest in inequalities in underserved communities and in the evaluation and development of policies or interventions which address these. She has a particular interest in the health and well-being of people in prison, their families and prison staff. She is currently working on a project which seeks to maximise the public health benefits of prison smoke-free policy.
Clair likes swimming, reading historical fiction, cooking and baking for friends and family and writing about herself in the third person.
Article
Brown A, Kate H, Woods-Brown C & Catherine A (2024) Recent evidence on rates and factors influencing smoking behaviours after release from smokefree prisons: a scoping review Journal: International Journal of Prison Health. International Journal of Prison Health. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPH-10-2023-0064
Article
Woods-Brown C, Hunt K & Sweeting H (2023) Bricolage as an expression of self and of cultural and familial foodways among people living in prison-'You make what you can with anything you can get'. Sociol Health Illn, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13698
Article
Woods-Brown C, Hunt K & Sweeting H (2023) Food and the prison environment: a meta-ethnography of global first-hand experiences of food, meals and eating in custody. Health & Justice, 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-023-00222-z
