My background is in social psychology, having studied for a BA Psychology (Trinity College, Dublin), MSc Social Research Methods with Social Psychology (London School of Economics) & PhD Psychology (London School of Economics).

My research interests are in community development approaches to improving public health, aiming to understand and support the processes through which marginalised communities can gain power to influence the people and structures which shape their lives and their health.

I have a longstanding research engagement in the area of sex-worker-led HIV prevention in India, with current research aiming to understand the social conditions which facilitate effective community-led health promotion. This work is in collaboration with Professor Catherine Campbell (LSE). See http://sites.google.com/site/communitymobilisation/ for more information.

In the UK context, I have recently been involved in research on Health Visitors’ contributions to reducing health inequalities, through a study of the interactions between Health Visitors and their clients in disadvantaged areas of Glasgow.

I am Editor of the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology.  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5625/home

Recent Publications

Guest-Edited Special issues

Cornish, F. & Campbell, C. (Eds.) ( 2010). The social context of community mobilisation : Foundations for success or failure. Guest-edited special issue of AIDS Care

Zittoun, T., Cornish, F., Gillespie, A. & Baucal, A. (Eds.) (2007). The socio-cultural psychology of collaborative research. Guest-edited special issue of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41(2).


Journal articles

Cornish, F., Shukla, A. & Banerji, R. (2010). Persuading, protesting and exchanging favours: Strategies used by Indian sex workers to win local support for their HIV prevention programmes. AIDS Care, 22, 1670-1678.

Campbell, C. & Cornish, F. (2010). Towards a ‘fourth generation’ of approaches to HIV/AIDS management: Creating contexts for effective community mobilization. AIDS Care

Campbell, C., Cornish, F., Gibbs, A. & Scott, K. (2010). Heeding the push from below: How do social movements persuade the rich to listen to the poor? Journal of Health Psychology

Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2010). What can be said? Identity as a constraint on knowledge production. Papers on Social Representations, 16, 5.1-5.13.

Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2010). Intersubjectivity: Towards a dialogical analysis. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 40, 19-46.

Cornish, F. & Gillespie, A. (2009). A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 1-10.

Cornish, F. & Campbell, C. (2009). The social conditions for successful peer education: A comparison of two HIV prevention programs run by sex workers in India and South Africa. American Journal of Community Psychology, 44, 123-135.

Bryans, A., Cornish, F. & McIntosh, J. (2009). The potential of ecological theory for building an integrated framework to develop the public health contribution of health visiting. Health and Social Care in the Community, 17, 564-572.

Cornish, F. (2009). Let’s get real (with a small ‘r’): For a health psychology that prioritises the concrete. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 638–642.

Zittoun, T., Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2009). Fragmentation or differentiation: Questioning the crisis in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 43, 104-115.

Gillespie, A., Cornish, F., Aveling, E.-L. & Zittoun, T. (2008). Conflicting community commitments: A dialogical analysis of a British woman’s World War II diaries.  Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 1-18.

Cornish, F., Gillespie, A., Zittoun, T. & Baucal, A. (2007). Editorial Introduction. Special issue of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science on ‘The socio-cultural psychology of collaborative research’. 41, 121-123. 

Zittoun, T., Baucal, A., Cornish, F. & Gillespie, A. (2007) Collaborative research, knowledge and emergence. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41, 208-217.

Cornish, F., Zittoun, T. & Gillespie, A. (2007) A cultural psychological reflection on collaborative research. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(3), Art. 21. Available: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-07/07-3-21-e.htm

Cornish, F. & Ghosh, R. (2007). The necessary contradictions of ‘community-led’ health promotion: A case study of HIV prevention in an Indian red light district. Social Science & Medicine, 64, 496-507.

Zittoun, T., Gillespie, A., Cornish, F. & Psaltis, C. (2007). The metaphor of the triangle in theories of human development. Human Development, 50, 208-229.

Parfitt, B.A. & Cornish, F. (2007). Implementing Family Health Nursing in Tajikistan: From policy to practice in primary health care reform. Social Science & Medicine, 65, 1720-1729.

Cornish, F. (2006). Challenging the stigma of sex work in India: Material conte
Address: Methodology Institute
London School of Economics
Houghton St
London WC2A 2AE
UK