Dr Matt Bowen
Head of School
As the Head of School for Allied and Public Health, I provide strategic leadership to the School. Working closely with colleagues within the Faculty, across the University and external to the University I have a key role in ensuring that the School provides a high quality educational experience for Undergraduate and Postgraduate students that meets their needs and those of the wider communities, workforce and services. This approach is aligned with the University's commitment to the Citizen Student Strategy.
I support the development and expansion of research within the School, including engagement with the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF).
Before joining the University of Chester in 2009, I worked as a mental health nurse at a National Centre of Excellence for people with a diagnosis of personality disorder (Henderson Hospital) as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. This experience is foundational to my understanding of the importance of education not only in the lives of students but those individuals they go on to work with and empower as their careers progress.
My teaching has fallen into three areas.
Health research. This has included Professional Doctorate modules; Masters level research modules; Dissertation modules and supervision for Masters and Doctorate students.
Mental health nursing practice, with an emphasis on evidence-based practice to enhance service user experience and outcomes and Public Mental Health perspectives.
Public Mental Health initiatives to enhance health literacy around mental health as a societal-level response to the processes of stigmatisation. This has included Mental Health First Aid; Make Every Contact Count (Mental Health) and the Global Mental Health Assessment Tool project. I have delivered teaching and training in this field in the UK, India, Uganda and Colombia.
My research interests have primarily been in two distinct areas.
Research into the practices of working with people with a diagnosis of personality disorder, with an emphasis on better understanding clinical practice to enhance the quality of experience for service users.
Research into the representation of mental health in the media, specifically through the lens of understanding the processes of stigmatisation and the contribution that the media play in challenging and/or perpetuating stigmatising images and messages.
Recent Publications include:
Bowen, M., Lovell, A. & Waller, R. (2020). Stigma: the representation of anorexia nervosa in UK newspaper Twitter feeds. Journal of Mental Health. 1-8.
Bowen, M. (2019). Stigma: a linguistic analysis of personality disorder in the UK popular press, 2008‐2017. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 26(7): 244–253.
Bowen, M., Kinderman, P., & Cooke, A. (2019). Stigma: a linguistic analysis of the UK red-top tabloids press’ representation of schizophrenia. Perspectives in public health, 139(3), 147-152.
Bowen, M., & Lovell, A. (2019). Stigma: the representation of mental health in UK newspaper Twitter feeds. Journal of Mental Health, May 10: 1-7.
Further publications can be found at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matt_Bowen
- PhD
- MA
- PGCert (Ed)
- BSc
- RMN