Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Blog
Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Blog
Posted by ma403
8 July 2026The Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) mental health theme held a meeting on 6th May 2026 with an eating disorder focus to showcase local research being conducted in this field. It was attended by colleagues from within APEx, the Children and Young people’s Mental Health (ChYMe) research collaboration and Psychology Department. This blog provides a summary of the discussions, outlining some of the key people working in the area at Exeter, highlighting the breadth of our local research and indicating avenues for future collaborations in this space.
Benjamin Geers – Academic Clinical Fellow in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Benjamin Geers shared his developing NIHR Doctoral Award proposal, which has now been submitted, for primary care focused feedback from APEx-affiliated academics and clinicians. The proposal builds on his analysis of England’s national Mental Health of Children and Young People 2017 survey, examining service contacts among young people with possible eating problems, and preliminary work using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) linked to electronic healthcare records. Discussion with the APEx team helped confirm the clinical relevance of the proposed studies and shaped thinking around primary care perspectives, Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) networks and methods. The proposed fellowship will examine co-occurring health needs and longitudinal healthcare patterns among young people with eating problems, with a lived-experience advisory group chaired by Hope Virgo, author multi award winning lived-experience mental health campaigner and secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for eating disorders. Ben also recently presented this work in a symposium he designed for the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress 2026. Looking ahead, he will complete his ALSPAC analysis and manuscript and continue developing this programme of research.
Maddy Greville-Harris – Clinical Psychologist and Senior Lecturer
Maddy Greville-Harris shared that she is starting work on a project funded by the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration co-developing and piloting compassion-based psychoeducation videos for parents of children with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). She is hoping to scale up this work to create video-based resources for children and young people with ARFID, their parents, and healthcare professionals in primary care. At the meeting there was some very helpful discussion to help Maddy with the planning of her next NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) grant bid. The outline application for this bid has now been submitted.
Stella Kozmér shared her recent public engagement work, which involved giving a speech at the Dump the Scale march, strengthening her partnership with UK’s leading eating disorder charity, Beating Eating Disorders (BEAT). She also highlighted her latest publication of a national survey, which reported on practices used to identify and manage Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN) in primary care. Currently, Stella is developing a grant with Tanimola Martins for the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme, where she aims to improve early identification of eating disorders in primary care by exploring routine data and patient journeys before an eating disorder diagnosis. Looking forward, Stella has plans to engage more with obesity research via the BE4ACTION research consortium, of which she is an active member, to explore the intersection of eating disorders/disordered eating and obesity/higher weight.
Fidan Turk – Lecturer in Clinical Psychology
Fidan’s research focuses on the sociocultural and economic determinants of eating disorders. Fidan shared that they are currently working on a Medical Research Foundation funded project looking at food insecurity and eating disorder symptoms, drawing on rich longitudinal datasets including ALSPAC, Understanding Society, and Born in Bradford. The work also includes a meta-analysis exploring the association between food insecurity and disordered eating more broadly. Looking ahead, there are plans to explore how these findings could inform healthcare provision for marginalised communities who are often underserved by current eating disorder services. She is currently working on the second-stage bid for a NIHR RfPB grant focused on a realist evaluation of British South Asian women’s experiences with eating disorder care, specifically their help-seeking journeys, with the aim of producing culturally sensitive, evidence-based resources.
Alice Garrood – Research Fellow
Alice shared her recent scoping review exploring interventions for autistic individuals experiencing disordered eating. Her NIHR Doctoral Fellowship application aims to improve understanding of why autistic individuals appear to be at increased risk of developing eating difficulties and how services can better meet their needs. The proposed research will investigate the prevalence and presentation of disordered eating behaviours in autistic populations using the Born in Bradford and IMAGINE cohort datasets, with a particular focus on increasing inclusivity through the use of creative research methods, such as PhotoVoice.
Building regional collaboration in eating disorder research
Together, these projects highlight the breadth of eating disorder research across Exeter and regional collaborators, spanning early identification in primary care, routine data, public engagement, lived experience involvement, and intersections of various eating disorders (including ARFID, BED, BN) with food insecurity, autism, obesity and higher weight. The recently established GW4 Eating Disorders Research Network (SWEDNET), now chaired by Alice Garrood, provides an important opportunity to strengthen regional collaboration, engagement and dissemination between eating disorder researchers, clinicians, lived experience contributors and community partners across the South West. A shared priority across the Exeter research described here is improving understanding of how eating difficulties are recognised, documented and responded to across health and care settings, particularly for groups who may be underserved by current specialist services and therefore end up accessing and being managed in primary care. We welcome contact from colleagues, clinicians, researchers, lived experience contributors and community or voluntary-sector partners interested in collaborating on future work in this area.
Contributors
This post summarises work shared by Benjamin Geers, Maddy Greville-Harris, Stella Kozmér, Fidan Turk and Alice Garrood, which is being supported by and was discussed with colleagues across APEx, ChYMe and the Psychology Department.