Elizabeth McDermott is a Professor of Health Inequality at

Lancaster University Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...

, in England. Her research considers mental health inequality, with a focus on

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...

and young people.

Early life and education

McDermott earned her doctoral degree at the

, where she studied the influence of

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

identity and

on wellbeing. She was a postdoctoral researcher on a project that looked to understand how people affected by cancer understood end of life issues.

Research and career

In 2006 McDermott joined the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

as an assistant professor. She returned to

in 2013. From 2014 McDermott led the

Department of Health and Social Care The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for government policy on health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the s ...

study into

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

youth suicide. The research programme looked to understand why

young people have a higher risk of suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. The programme came to be known as ''Queer Futures'', and identified that 70% of young people have experienced discrimination or bullying related to their sexual orientation. She also identified that 4 out of 5 young people hid their sexual orientation or gender identity, and those that hide their gender identity are almost two times as likely to self-harm. The study contributed to the

SAGE #REDIRECT Sage {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

Encyclopaedia of LGBTQ Studies. The LBGT youth suicide project expanded into the

National Institute for Health Research The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government's major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "improv ...

''Queer Futures 2'', which looks to improve the mental health provision for

young people. Queer Futures 2 partnered with The Blueprint study, which looked at community-based mental health provision. McDermott has worked with the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

to implement findings based on her research, including

awareness training, remarking that ‘We need to provide safe and non-judgemental environments for young people to talk about their sexualities, and mental health services outside the clinical environment’. McDermot serves on the board of trustees of the Consortium of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Voluntary and Community Organisations.

Selected publications

Her publications include; * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDermott, Elizabeth Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of Lancaster University Academics of Lancaster University Academics of the University of York British LGBTQ academics British women academics Lesbian academics