Professor  Kathryn Abel  (MA MBBS FRCP FRCPsych PhD) - research

Kathryn Abel is Professor of Psychiatry & Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Manchester and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. She is lead researcher for the Centre for Women's Mental Health Research Manchester.  She has a particular interest in women with schizophrenia and the outcomes of their offspring; the effects of sex on risk for neurodevelopmetnal disorder; the effect of prenatal exposures on fetal, childhood and adult mental health outcomes. She was an author of Into the Mainstream:a policy document for the Department of Health addressing the mental health needs of women. She has developed a practical guide to the implementation of women only day services for LITs and PCTs.

Kathryn is a member of the Primary Care Mental Health Research Group. Her interests include:

• The mortality and morbidity of offspring exposed to parental mental illness in a population database usisng the Danish Research Registers.
• Reassessing birth weight in schizophrenia; a longitudinal examination of the effects of sex, seasonality, migration and urbanicity in the Danish population.
• Risk of obstetric, neurodevelopmental, forensic and adult psychiatric outcomes in the offspring of women explosed to periconceptional death of a first degree relative using the Danish population databases
• The effect of maternal age at first birth on maternal and offspring outcomes using the Danish National Databases.
• Women who kill: homicidal and infanticidal women and their pathways to care 
• Women in prisons
• RESPOND (Randomised Evaluation of antidepressants and Support for women with POstNatal Depression); A comparison of antidepressant and psychological therapy for PND in the community.

Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Universities of Oslo and Bergen, Norway

University of Bristol, UK

Columbai University, New York, USA

University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

• Effect of maternal stress on pregnancy outcome: premature birth and mental illness
• Women offenders repeated self-harm intervention pilot (worship) study