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Dr Katherine East

A head and shoulders image of Katie East

Dr Katherine East (PhD, FHEA)

Senior Lecturer in Public Health
E: k.east@bsms.ac.uk
Location: Watson Building, Department of Primary Care & Public Health, University of Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9PH

Areas of expertise: Addiction, public health

Research areas: Nicotine/tobacco (including smoking and vaping), behaviour change, perceptions, policy, quantitative methods, complex surveys, open science, research culture, open science.

Biography

Katie has recently joined the department as a Senior Lecturer in Public Health. Prior to joining, she completed a Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) Academic Fellowship at King's College London (KCL) assessing people's perceptions of the harms of vaping. Katie's research primarily focuses on nicotine and tobacco products, perceptions, and policies. Katie leads the England arm of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project and Co-Chairs the international Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) Policy and Regulatory Science Network. She completed her PhD in Addiction Sciences at KCL and has an MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences from University College London. Katie also has an interest in research culture and open science and has consulted for UKRI on these topics. Katie is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) with over 8 years’ experience teaching postgraduate and undergraduate students. Katie supervises student projects as well as PhD candidates.

Research

Katie’s research interests primarily focus on tobacco and nicotine use, the public health implications of smoking and vaping, and policies to change use. She has a particular interest on research among youth and young adults. Her research portfolio includes social norms towards smoking and vaping, health risks and perceptions, the role of vaping in smoking cessation, and global patterns and trends in tobacco and nicotine product use. Katie has researched the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a cessation tool compared to other methods and analysed the impact of regulatory measures, such as flavour restrictions and menthol cigarette bans, on behaviours. Katie leads the England arm of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project and Co-Chairs the international Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) Policy and Regulatory Science Network. Katie has contributed to reports assessing the health effects and perceptions of vaping for the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and the Royal College of Physicians (here). Katie has also worked with Evidence to Impact and local authorities across the UK on youth smoking and vaping prevention initiatives. She has also been on the steering committee for Cancer Research UK's E-Cigarette Research Forum and has advised the Canadian Cancer Society on youth smoking and vaping prevention. Katie also has an interest in research culture and has consulted UKRI on initiatives to improve research culture (report here). She also has an interest in open science and statistical methods; she was co-ordinator of KCL’s IoPPN faculty-wide Volunteer Electronic Helpdesk on Research Methods and Statistics from 2017-2019 and founded and led the ReproducibiliTea journal club at The University of Waterloo (Canada).

Katie’s work has featured in TIME magazine, Stylist, The Times, The Independent, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail, CNN, and other major news outlets in the UK and internationally. She has also discussed work on live radio with the BBC (BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Wales) and podcasts such as Eureka! and Addiction Audio.

Teaching

Katie is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) with over 8 years’ experience teaching postgraduate and undergraduate students. Katie’s teaching primarily focuses on research methods and statistics at BSc and MSc level as well as theories of addiction, behaviour change, harm reduction, and tobacco/nicotine use. Katie has experience delivering lectures, seminars, and workshops. Katie also regularly supervises student projects and supervises PhD candidates. Between 2022 and 2024, Katie held an Adjunct Assistant Professor position at the School of Public Health, University of Waterloo (Canada), where she served on MSc committees. Katie is available to supervise undergraduate and postgraduate individual research projects as well as PhD students, and particularly welcomes students interested in researching smoking, vaping, and use of novel nicotine products (e.g., vapes, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches).

Selected publications

East, K., Vu, G., Sun, T., D’Mello, K., Perman-Howe, P.R., Taylor, E., Nottage, M., Brose, L., Robson, D. McNeill, A. (2024). Harm perceptions across vaping product features: an online cross-sectional survey of adults who smoke and/or vape in the United Kingdom. Addiction. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16572

East, K., Taylor, E. V., Simonavičius, E., Reid, J. L., Burkhalter, R., McNeill, A., Hammond, D. (2024). Use of ‘Elf Bar’ Among Youth and Young Adults who Currently Vape in England: Cross-Sectional Associations with Demographics, Dependence Indicators, and Reasons for Use. Addiction. DOI: 10.1111/add.16463.

Taylor, E., Arnott, D., Cheeseman, H., Hammond, D., Reid, J. L., McNeill, A., Driezen, P., East, K. (2023). Association of Fully Branded and Standardized e-Cigarette Packaging With Interest in Trying Products Among Youths and Adults in Great Britain. JAMA Network Open, 6(3), e231799-e231799. DOI: doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.1799. Link.

East, K., Reid, J. L., Burkhalter, R., Kock, L., Hyland, A., Fong, G. T., Hammond, D. (2022) Menthol cigarette smoking among youth in England, Canada, and the US, 2018-2020: Evaluating the impact of the menthol cigarette ban in England. JAMA Network Open. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.10029. Link.

East, K., Miller, C. R., Hitchman, S. C., McNeill, A., & Tompkins, C. N. E. T. (2022) ‘It’s not what you’d term normal smoking’: A qualitative exploration of language used to describe Heated Tobacco Product (HTP) use and associated user identity. Addiction. DOI: doi.org/10.1111/add.16051. Link.

East, K., Reid, J. L., Rynard, V. L., & Hammond, D. (2021). Trends and patterns of tobacco and nicotine product use among youth in Canada, England, and the US from 2017-2019. Journal of Adolescent Health. DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.02.011. Link.

East, K., Hitchman, S. C., Bakolis, I., Williams, S., Cheeseman, H., Arnott, D., & McNeill, A. (2018). The association between smoking and electronic cigarette use in a cohort of young people. Journal of Adolescent Health, 62(5), 539-547. DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.11.301. Link.