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Full NameDr Laura Jane Sahm

Pharmacy

University College Cork

Webpage:publish.ucc.ie

Email Address:Email hidden; Javascript is required.

Research Fields
  • neuroscience and mental health
  • epidemiology/population health research
  • preventive medicine/behavioural change interventions
Postgrad Medical Specialties
  • Medicine
  • Psychiatry
  • General Practice
  • Public Health
Medical Subspecialties
  • Community Medicine
  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Psychiatry
  • Other
Other Medical Specialties:

Health Literacy, medication adherence, Vaccine hesitancy, pharmacovigilance, swallowing difficulties and medication

My Work

Public Health: Vaccines: The World Health Organization has declared vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health. I have published in high impact journals in this field and am in a consortium that has applied for HRB ILP funding to address Low Vaccine Uptake..
Health Literacy: I am co -chair of the IHLA-org Special Interest Group on Health Literacy in Primary Care. We are currently working on a project with Germany, Portugal and Ireland examining patients post MI and post stroke and their needs from primary care healthcare professionals.
I have aligned myself with prominent global researchers in my field and have ongoing collaborations with Professor Michael Wolf and Associate Professor Stacy Bailey at the Northwestern University, Chicago (Health Literacy).
Mental Health for all: I am currently working with a Consortium for the Horizon Europe, looking at innovative and digital ways of communicating with patients who have mental illness.

Potential Projects

1.
Swallowing Difficulties in patients and the impact upon medication adherence and constructs surrounding health literacy. Current PhD projects include examining populations post stroke and those with aphasia and / or dysphagia. Work is done in collaboration with Cork university Hospital, University Hospital Limerick and in conjunction with the School of Clinical Therapies UCC.

2.
Vaccine Hesitancy
We are currently collaborating with investigators in TCD, NIO and HPSC to work together on interventions to improve vaccine uptake specific to childhood and adolescent vaccines

3.
Medication error at the primary / secondary care interface.
We know that when patients transition between care settings there is a risk of errors occurring with their medication management. We are investigating opportunities to improve the communication between healthcare professionals to decrease these errors.

4.
Mental Health
Current projects include the investigation of the knowledge of the community pharmacist regarding patients of theirs who may be receiving clozapine.
Other projects include antipsychotic induced weight gain and its sequelae and the effects upon patients . We are currently trying to investigate the correlations between variables and outcomes in this population.