At the University, Carol is a senior academic in the Research in Childbirth and Health Unit (REACH). Carol’s substantial research contributions incorporate studies of reproductive choice and birth mode, preventable stillbirth and bereavement care, and qualitative alongside-studies of clinical trials. Carol is currently involved in two multi-million-pound, global health multi-country studies investigating optimising caesarean section use in low- and middle-income countries, C-SAFE and QUALI-DEC.
Carol is acknowledged for developing the 2018 World Health Organization’s (WHO) model of factors related to women, society, health providers, and health-care organisations that affect the frequency of caesarean section use at the local level. The model depicts how social factors surround the obstetric indications that also affect the frequency of births by caesarean section. It was published in The Lancet Series on Optimising Caesarean Section Use. To date, Carol has contributed six systematic reviews to the WHO programme on caesarean use and led two systematic reviews for the 2023 WHO Research gaps and needs to optimize the use of assisted vaginal birth: technical brief.
Carol is also recognised for contributing novel interdisciplinary evidence to drive new action on intersectionality, inequalities, and preventable stillbirth in the UK – research funded by SANDS Inequalities and stillbirth in the UK – What does existing research say about how to reduce stillbirths in disadvantaged families? | Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families. Also funded by SANDS, Carol led the qualitative analysis of the first national study of bereaved parents' experience of stillbirth in UK hospitals. Extracts from the study were read in parliament providing lived-experience evidence to support national improvements in bereavement care Last - Sands, the stillbirth & neonatal death charity. Carol also contributed to a study of post-mortem examination after stillbirth. This informed the design of the national consent form package for post-mortem after perinatal death.
For two decades, Carol has used her unique sociological lens to challenge and compliment clinician’s perspectives in pursuit of solutions for complex problems facing frontline healthcare. She is sole author of Sociology for Midwives (Quay Books 2009), co-author of Social and Cultural Perspectives on Health, Technology and Medicine Old Concepts, New Problems (Routledge 2016) and a chapter contributor to the Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Healthcare (Palgrave Macmillan 2012).
