Jodie McGarry
PhD student
Department of Nursing and Community Health
Jodie graduated from GCU with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 2016. Afterwards, Jodie went on to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Psychology) at The University of Strathclyde before working as a Psychology teacher in a secondary school. Jodie has worked as a tutor in the Psychology department at GCU since 2018. Jodie is a member of the Substance Use and Misuse team at GCU and the Scottish Alcohol Research Network (SARN).
Jodie's PhD research is on women, alcohol, and gambling. Women are increasingly affected by the social, financial and health costs of heavy drinking and problem gambling. Alcohol consumption and gambling share various features including the relaxation of UK laws, the increasing normalisation of both practices, the increasing ease of both drinking and gambling from home, and the growth of marketing specifically targeted towards women from both industries. Both industries also typically position problem drinking and gambling as a problem for a small minority of problematic individuals who do not use their products ‘responsibly’. Excessive drinking and problem gambling are both linked to poor mental health and adverse effects on families and children and are likely to disproportionately harm the most socially deprived groups in society and so increase health inequalities. Women’s drinking and gambling are more stigmatised than men’s, support services and peer support are often perceived to be orientated towards men, and research in both fields has been criticised for being gender blind. Despite these important connections, drinking and gambling are rarely studied together. This exploratory project will use qualitative methods to elicit the accounts of women who gamble and consume alcohol and will likely recruit a broad sample of women across the harm continuum.