School of Psychology

At age 15, Emee started her degree in Psychology at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.  She graduated magna cum laude four years later and travelled to Los Angeles for a six month break.  She then moved to London to study her MSc and PhD in Health Psychology both at City University London.  As a student, Emee also worked as a research assistant for various health promotion projects; as a charity fundraiser for Oxfam, the Association for International Cancer Research, and the Royal Horticultural Society; as a volunteer for CRIBS Philippines and Save the Children UK; as a visiting lecturer and dissertation supervisor for postgraduate students at City University; and as editorial assistant for the Journal of Health Psychology.  She also collaborated with the Popular Education for People’s Empowerment on an action research project with the indigenous Ayta community in the Philippines.  At age 24, Emee completed her PhD and then worked as health promotion fellow at the Institute for Health and Human Development where she project managed various NHS-funded community needs assessments and evaluation of health improvement programmes.  In 2009, Emee was appointed lecturer and diversity and disability officer at the School of Psychology at Keele University.

Emee is a health psychologist who specialises in health promotion and community development.  She considers herself as a scholar-activist and engages in campaigns for the protection of children’s rights, gender equality, widening participation, and health literacy.  As part of her PhD, she explored the impact of material deprivation and social exclusion on health and well-being. As part of this project, she facilitated a participatory action research with the indigenous Ayta community to develop an alternative learning system (ALS) to enhance literacy and community capabilities and thereby improve health. The project involved collaboration with NGOs, local and national government units. In the process, a community literacy centre was built, a pool of Ayta leaders was organised and a multi-purpose cooperative programme was established. In 2008, Emee also became actively involved in a campaign against racist humour in the media.

Recently completed projects:

• Estacio_Action_on_Health_Literacy_and_Diabetes engaging South Asian Men and Young Men with diabetes (Funded by NHS Stoke and Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
• Life as a migrant nurse in the UK (Funded by Richard Benjamin Memorial Grant)
• Internationalisation of teaching and learning at Keele University (Funded by Keele University Teaching Innovation Award)

On-going projects:

• Health information materials in GP practices in Stoke-on-Trent: A multi-stage readability assessment (Funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
• Baseline health literacy survey in Stoke-on-Trent (Funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
• Keele International Reflections: Developing an online blog on internationalisation and inter-cultural learning (Funded by Keele University Teaching Innovation Award)

PhD supervision:

• Bushra Bibi: Health literacy and diabetes management among South Asians in the UK

Books

Marks, D.F., Murray, M., Evans, B., & Estacio, E.V. (2010). Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice (3 rd ed). London: Sage Publications.

Book chapters

Estacio, E.V. & Marks, D.F. (2012). Liberation of the social consciousness through alternative learning and action research: A work in progress with the Aytas in the Philippines. In C. Walker, K. Johnson & L. Cunningham (eds). Community psychology and the economics of mental health: Global perspectives (pp.238-252). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Articles

Estacio, E.V. & Comings, J. (2013). Special Section on Health Literacy [Guest Editor]. Journal of Health Psychology, 18, 997-1084.

Estacio, E.V. & Comings, J. (2013). Health literacy: exploring future directions and potential contributions from health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology. 18, 997-1003.

Estacio, E.V. (2013).  Health literacy and community empowerment: It’s more than just reading, writing and counting, Journal of Health Psychology, 18, 1056-1068.

Estacio, E.V. (2012). ‘Playing with fire and getting burned’: The case of the naive action researcher.  Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 22, 439-451.

Tobi, P., Estacio, E.V., Renton, A., Yu, G. & Foster, N. (2012). Who stays, who drops out? Biosocial predictors of adherence in participants attending a longer term exercise referral scheme in the UK. BMC Public Health, 12, 347.

Yu, G., Renton, A., Wall, M., Estacio, E.V., Cawley, J., Datta, P. (2011). Prevalence of low physical activity and its relation to social environment in deprived areas in the London Borough of Redbridge. Social Indicators Research, 104, 311-322, DOI: 10.1007/s11205-010-9745-x

Estacio, E.V. & Marks, D.F. (2010). Critical reflections on social injustice and participatory action research : The case of the indigenous Ayta community in the Philippines. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5, 548-552.

Estacio, E.V. (2009). ‘Your freedom ends where my nose begins’: Health psychology's potential towards critical empowerment, media advocacy and social action. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 660-662.

Estacio, E.V. (2009). Human exploitation is NOT a joke - so don't laugh. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 627-637.

Estacio, E.V. (2009). Media exploitation, racism and health. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 155 - 157.

Estacio, E.V. (2006). Going beyond the rhetoric: The movement of critical health psychology towards social action. Journal of Health Psychology, 11, 347-350.

Estacio, E.V. and Marks, D.F. (2005). Child labour and the ILO Convention 182: A critical perspective. Journal of Health Psychology, 10, 475-484.

Year 1:

PSY-10015: Research Methods 1 (module leader)

PSY-10017: Biological and Cognitive Psychology

PSY-10018: Individuals and Society 1

Year 2:

PSY-20013: Survey and Qualitative Research Methods

Year 3:

PSY-30086: Critical Psychology, Globalisation and Human Rights (module leader)

PSY-30058: Psychology, Health and Social Action (module leader)

PSY-30077: Health Psychology

PSY-30061: Final Year Project

MSc:

PSY-40031: Special Topics in Psychology for MSc

PSY-40033: Research Apprenticeship for MSc

PSY-40035: Qualitative Research Methods

PSY-40015: Dissertation

Other:

Nutrition and Energy Balance: Communicating nutrition information (visiting lecturer)

Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Designing programmes and teaching for a diverse student body (visiting lecturer)

External affiliations

• Journal of Health Psychology (Editorial board member)
• Community, Work and Family (Editorial board member)
• Philippine Journal of Psychology (Editorial board member)

• Health Literacy UK (Steering group member)
• Health Literacy Stoke-on-Trent (Steering group member)
• Health Literacy UK Annual Conference 2013 (Scientific/organising committee member)
• Stoke-on-Trent Healthy Public Policy Advisory Group (Member)

• Institute for Health and Human Development (Honorary fellow in health promotion)
• Popular Education for People’s Empowerment (Honorary fellow)
• International Society for Critical Health Psychology (Member)
• Association for Heterodox Economics (Member)

• BBC Radio Stoke, Pinoy Radio UK, ABS-CBN Europe (Guest speaker/commentator)
• Peer reviewed for the Lancet, NIHR, Health Expectations, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Transcultural Psychiatry, Online Readings in Psychology, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, and Child Abuse and Neglect