Dr Alice Coffey

Profile

Alice Coffey is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Food and Nutrition Policy at the Centre for Public Health and Policy.

She is leading a qualitative systematic review on perceptions of the treatment of maternal anaemia, drawing on the views of pregnant women and other stakeholders, and contributes to a related review of intravenous iron use in pregnancy.

Before joining QMUL, Alice completed her PhD at the University of Warwick, where she used mixed methods to examine whether plant-based diets meet children's nutrient needs, their environmental impact, and the acceptability of these diets among children in the UK.

Research

Research Interests:

Alice is interested in whether diets meet nutritional requirements while reducing environmental impact, and in how that evidence is used in food policy. Her work focuses on groups whose nutrient requirements are high and whose intakes are often inadequate, particularly young children and pregnant women. She has a specific interest in the micronutrients that are hardest to obtain when diets are restricted, plant-based or changing, including iodine, vitamin B12 and iron.

She is also interested in acceptability. Dietary guidance and food policy depend on whether people are able and willing to follow them, so she uses qualitative methods and behaviour change models to understand the factors shaping food choices in everyday life. She is currently developing work on primary school food, and on whether food standards in schools can provide a nutritional floor for children regardless of what they eat at home.

Her methods are both quantitative and qualitative, including dietary assessment, nutrient adequacy analysis, estimation of the environmental impact of diets, qualitative evidence synthesis and thematic analysis.

Publications

• Coffey, A., Lillywhite, R., Oyebode, O. 'Nutritional availability and carbon footprints of omnivorous, vegetarian and vegan diets: A cross-sectional analysis of dietary data for UK children aged 2–12'. PLOS ONE (2026): 21 (6)
• Murphy, M., Coffey, A., Pallan, M., Oyebode, O. 'Changing the food environment in secondary school canteens to promote healthy dietary choices: a qualitative study with school caterers'. BMC Public Health (2024): 24
• Lange, M., Coffey, A., Coleman, P. et al. 'Metabolic changes following intermittent fasting: A rapid review of systematic reviews'. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics (2023): 37 (1)
• Coffey, A., Lillywhite, R., and Oyebode, O. 'Meat versus meat alternatives: which is better for the environment and health? A nutritional and environmental analysis of animal-based products compared with their plant-based alternatives.' Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics (2023): 36 (6) — one of the journal's 10 most-cited papers of 2023
• Coleman, P., Barber, T., van Rens, T., Hanson, P., Coffey, A., and Oyebode, O. 'COVID-19 Outcomes in Minority Ethnic Groups: Do Obesity and Metabolic Risk Play a Role?'. Current Obesity Reports (2021): 1, 1-9