Meet PhD student Mariliis Tael-Öeren – the first in our new series of getting to know the people who make up the Behavioural Science Group.
Mariliis is researching children’s alcohol use prevention in Estonia. For the past seven years she has been working at the National Institute of Health Development in Estonia, where she implemented the ‘Effekt’ programme, which targets parents to reduce and prevent their children from consuming alcohol.
Mariliis’ PhD is focusing on evaluating the Effekt programme. Now entering her third year, she has been working on a systematic review exploring the relationship between parents’ attitudes and children’s alcohol consumption.
Although it sounds logical that the attitudes of parents and children’s alcohol consumption are related, there is controversy in studies. So the question is, are the two actually related and should we be focusing on parental attitudes or turning our attention to other factors? Mariliis’ other work to date has been analysing quantitative data collected during the three-year longitudinal study of the Effekt programme.
So what is next? Over the remainder of her PhD, Mariliis will continue with the quantitative analysis and complete the systematic review. She also plans to analyse the qualitative data from the Effekt study.
Aside from studying, Mariliis enjoys being physically active, especially hiking in the mountains.
Mariliis is a PhD student within the Behavioural Science Group. For more information on her research into alcohol reduction, see here.