Senior Research Associate

Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders in High Risk Groups

Current work and interests

Julia’s current research interests focus on behavioural weight management, understanding the psychosocial determinants of obesity and weight management, and using digital means to develop behavioural interventions. She has expertise in developing evidence-based, theory-based, digital behavioural interventions, evaluating interventions using randomised trials and mixed-methods process evaluations, and advanced quantitative methods.

Recently, she led the quantitative analysis on an NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR)-funded programme developing and evaluating scalable behavioural weight management programmes for the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. She is currently a co-investigator on the NIHR PGfAR-funded “Supporting Weight Management (SWiM)” trial, leading the quantitative work packages. She is a member of the Operations Committee for the Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO) and co-leads the ASO East of England network. She teaches on the MPhil in Population Health Sciences on ‘Changing Behaviour’.

Background and experience

Julia holds a BSc in Psychology and MSc in Health Psychology. Her PhD (University of Manchester) focused on help-seeking behaviour in lung cancer and involved the development and evaluation of a digital behavioural intervention. Before joining the Unit, she worked as a lecturer in Healthcare Sciences at the University of Manchester, leading a course unit on the Master of Public Health on ‘Digital Public Health’.

Publications

• MRC Epidemiology Unit publications on Publications Database

Selected publications

• Mueller, J., Richards, R., Jones, R. A., Whittle, F., Woolston, J., Stubbings, M., Sharp, S. J., Griffin, S. J., Bostock, J., Hughes, C. A., Hill, A. J., Boothby, C. E., & Ahern, A. L. (2022). Supporting Weight Management during COVID-19 (SWiM-C): twelve-month follow-up of a randomised controlled trial of a web-based, ACT-based, guided self-help intervention. International Journal of Obesity 2022, 1–9. DOI:10.1038/s41366-022-01232-x
• Davies, A. & Mueller, J. (2020). Developing Medical Apps and mHealth Interventions: A Guide for Researchers, Physicians and Informaticians. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-47499-7
• Mueller, J., Ahern, A. L., Sharp, S. J., Davies, A., Zuckerman, A., Perry, B. I., Khandaker, G. M., De Lucia Rolfe, E., Wareham, N. / Rennie, K. The relationship between within-individual and between-individual variation in mental health and bodyweight during the Covid-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study. PLOS ONE, 19(1), e0295117. DOI:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0295117