Dr Sarah Kehoe is a Public Health Nutritionist working in Global Health education and research. She studied BSc Physiology and Psychology at the University of Southampton followed by a Masters in Public Health Nutrition during which she became particularly interested in global health issues. She joined the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in 2006 and investigated associations between early life nutrition exposures and later risk of cardiometabolic disease working extensively with research teams in rural and urban India on cohort studies and randomised controlled trials. She undertook her PhD part time alongside her role. Her thesis was entitled “The effect of a micronutrient-rich supplement on women’s health and nutrient status”.

Following her PhD, she continued to work in India and led a DFID-funded qualitative research project to study the determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption in rural Maharashtra and to better understand the challenges of food and nutrition security in these communities. She has worked with adolescents and their caregivers in South Asia and Africa to understand the barriers and facilitators to consuming a high-quality diet and being physically active. In 2018 Sarah took on a Senior Research Fellow role with the NIHR funded Global Health Research Group: INPreP (Improved Nutrition Preconception, Pregnancy and Postpartum) which involved collaborating with teams in Burkina Faso, Ghana and South Africa on community engagement research activities as well as reviewing WHO and national level maternal and child nutrition policies. As part of this role Sarah was Training and Capacity Building Lead.

Sarah has completed the Post graduate certificate of academic practice (PGCAP) and has Module Lead and Deputy Assessment Lead roles. She teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate courses and has supervised numerous MSc and BSc students as well as co-supervised PhD students in the UK and India.

She has taught and facilitated on several training courses including an NIHR funded Qualitative Research and Community Engagement workshop and an MRC funded scientific writing course for early career researchers. She has designed training packages in anthropometry and dietary assessment for early career researchers and health professionals.

She is an Academic Editor for the journal Global Public Health and has co-led the organisation of several international conferences.

Sarah is Course Lead for the MSc Health Promotion at the University of Brighton and leads Level 6 and 7 modules including including 'Principles of Health Promotion and Behaviour Change', 'Global Perspectives on Public Health' and 'Strategy and planning in health'. Sarah teaches on the MSc Public Health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, as well as on the Specialist Community Public Health Nursing course, BSc Nutrition and BSc Sport and Exercise Science, so has experience with students from a wide range of academic backgrounds. 

She has experience of teaching a wide range of topics including determinants of health and disease, nutrition, research methods, numeracy and statistics and professional practice. She supervises students at BSc, MSc and PhD level and has led on several training and capacity building activities within global health research and education. 

Sarah's approach to teaching is to empower and encourage students to think critically and creatively in order to develop ideas and strategies to tackle health challenges. She believes that all students have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share and it is important that we all learn from each other.

Sarah has supervised BSc, MSc and PhD students from a variety of subject backgrounds including Medicine, Global Health, Public Health, Health Promotion, Health Psychology and Nutrition. She is interested in supervising projects within the area of maternal, child and adolescent health particularly those that involve community engagement in low- and middle-income countries. She has experience of supervising quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. Previous projects have included primary data collection, secondary data analyses, systematic reviews and scoping reviews.

Sarah's research focuses on the social and envrinomental determinants of  child and adolescent diet and physical activity, as well as intervention design and implementation, community engagement and the food environment in low- and middle-income countries.