Valeria Skafida

Valeria Skafida is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests and expertise lie across the disciplines of social policy, sociology and public health.  Most of her research to date has involved using longitudinal data to understand how young children’s health and wellbeing outcomes are socially stratified.  Valeria’s broad research interests include: 

• Social Policy
• Public health
• Social stratification & Social inequality
• Children and young people
• Sociology of health and illness
• Infant feeding
• Children’s diets and family meals
• Children living with domestic abuse
• Quantitative methods
• Social surveys
• Longitudinal analysis

Valeria has explored how early experiences or events relate to subsequent outcomes, especially in relation to infant and child feeding, and the eating habits of children and families. She is currently undertaking research on how living in a home where there is domestic violence affects children’s health and wellbeing as they grow. Her recent publications include:

• Skafida, V., Morrison, F., & Devaney, J. (2021). Prevalence and social inequality in experiences of domestic abuse among mothers of young children: A study using national survey data from Scotland. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520980392
• Skafida, V. (2014) Change in breastfeeding patterns in Scotland between 2004 and 2011 and the role of health policy. European Journal of Public Health DOI Link
• Skafida, V., & Chambers, S. (2018). Positive association between sugar consumption and dental decay prevalence independent of oral hygiene in pre-school children: A longitudinal prospective study. Journal of Public Health, 40(3), e275-e283. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdx184