Dr Dan Smith
BSc (Plym.), MSc (UCL), PhD (UCL)
Expertise
Current positions
Senior Research Associate in Health & Religious/Spiritual Beliefs and Behaviours
Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
By training I am an Evolutionary Anthropologist, interested in understanding human behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. I completed a PhD at UCL (awarded June 2017) exploring cooperation among the Agta, a population of Filipino hunter-gatherers. My evolutionary research interests also include the ontogenetic roots of cooperation, the evolution of storytelling, and wider links between cooperation, life history theory and cultural evolution.
Since August 2016 I have been working at the University of Bristol in the Population Health Sciences department, initially within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) study and currently as a Senior Research Associate. While I still have an interest in evolutionary topics, I now predominantly - and somewhat accidentally - work within with the field of Epidemiology.
I have been involved in various projects, predominantly using ALSPAC data, exploring topics such as: using linkage data from routine GP records to investigate mental health, examining potential issues of selection bias in COVID-19 data collections, and applying structured life course methods to answer questions in life course epidemiology. As of September 2021, my main research focus has been on investigating religion and health, as part of the Belief, Behaviours and Health Research Group.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Beliefs, Behaviours and Health Research Programme
Role
Researcher
Description
The overall programme of research is aimed at understanding whether different aspects of beliefs and associated behaviours are associated with health and well-being. The primary data source for this research…Managing organisational unit
Bristol Medical School (PHS)Dates
01/09/2021 to 31/08/2026
Publications
Recent publications
04/01/2024Exploring bidirectional causality between religion and mental health: A longitudinal study using data from the parental generation of a UK birth cohort (ALSPAC)
Accounting for bias due to outcome data missing not at random
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Bargaining between the sexes
Evolution and Human Behavior
Climate change beliefs and behaviours: Data collected from 30-year-old offspring and their parents in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
Wellcome Open Research
Disagreement concerning atopic dermatitis subtypes between an English prospective cohort (ALSPAC) and linked electronic health records
Clinical and Experimental Dermatology