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Biography
Eamonn Ferguson is a Professor of Health Psychology. He graduated from the University of York in 1998 with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and was awarded his PhD from the University of Nottingham in 1991. He is a chartered health and occupational psychologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and co-founding president of the British Society for the Psychology of Individual Differences (www.bspid.org.uk/). He was elected as a Distinguished International Affiliate of Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Society in 2014. He is an associate scientific member of the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) collaboration He sits on and advises committees on blood donor policy. He is a member of the NHS Blood and Transplant 'For the Individual Assessment of Risk' (FAIR) Steering group, where he heads up the behavioural science research. This work on FAIR has contributed to UK policy changes to donor selection policy with respect to enhanced equality around (i) sexuality and sexual behaviour and (ii) donors from minority communities. He is also a steering group member of the "Blood Donation and HIV International Expert Reference Group (BHIERG)" for the: New Zealand Blood Service. He won the University's Institute of Policy and Engagement Best Policy Impact Initiative award in 2022 for the FAIR work and was awarded the Vice-Chancellors Medal 2022.
Teaching Summary
I currently teach altruism and cooperation to final year undergraduates. I have previously taught personality theory and statistics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.I supervise taught… read more
Research Summary
Professor Ferguson's research focuses is on (i) cooperation and altruism and (ii) pain. The work on cooperation and altruism focuses on how theoretical models of human cooperation and altruism can… read more
I currently teach altruism and cooperation to final year undergraduates. I have previously taught personality theory and statistics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.I supervise taught undergraduate and taught post0gradute project in hte areas of altruism, blood and organ donation. I supervise PhD students in the areas of altruism, blood and organ donatio and well-being.
Current Research
Professor Ferguson's research focuses is on (i) cooperation and altruism and (ii) pain. The work on cooperation and altruism focuses on how theoretical models of human cooperation and altruism can inform a better understanding of blood and organ donation behaviour, vaccination behaviour, and energy use. Specifically, this work focuses on (i) developing a better understanding of blood and organ donor motivations, preferences, and behaviour, (ii) developing and evaluating early- and late-stage interventions to enhance blood and organ donor recruitment, (iii) developing processes to encourage equality, inclusion and fairness across blood and (iv) organ donation and working with communities and social enterprise groups to co-design approaches to encourage more people from Black communities to donate blood. Insights from this applied work further inform our theoretical understanding of cooperation and altruism. The work of pain explores (i) how central sensitization traits influence perceptions of pain, (ii) trajectories of pain, (iii) how pain is distributed geographically and (iv) the role of socio-political factors.
Future Research
Current funding from the National Institute of Health and Case Research (NIHR) with the Universities of Cambridge (lead), Oxford, and Queensland we have a programme of behavioural research set within the Blood and Transplant Unit (BTRU) for donor health and behaviour. This work, over the next years (ending March 2027) will explore a variety of topics linked to blood donation, including encouraging more people from ethnic minority groups to donate blood, exploring ways to frame different donation frequencies, the blood donor phenotype, and the emotional, behavioural and cognitive temporal dynamics of blood donation.