Dr Thomas Mills

I am a Senior Research Fellow for PHIRST South Bank, funded by the National Institute for Health Research. Since completing my PhD in 2016, I've contributed to diverse health service and public health research projects and I have ongoing collaborations with colleagues across London South Bank University, University of Leeds and University of York.

I have expertise in complex intervention research, with a particular interest in creative, qualitative modelling in evaluations. My biggest research achievement to date is a 2019 methods paper ‘Advancing complexity science in healthcare research: the logic of logic models’ on this topic, published with BMC Medical Research Methodology. This has been cited 150 plus times at the time of writing (with 22k accesses) and is referred to in the updated Medical Research Council guidance on complex interventions.

I am Member of the Trial Steering Committee for a major NIHR trial evaluating Biomarker Driven Antifungal Stewardship in Acute Leukaemia, based at the University of York.

My current PHIRST projects consist of a community-led, regional effort to reduce gambling-related harms, a substance misuse intervention for custody suite referrals and a stop smoking service.

I'm interested in "big picture" theorisations of complex interventions and am currently exploring how social theory, notably Jurgen Habermas' ideas, can help us understand the problems and contexts of public health interventions.