Dr Frank Houghton Assistant Lecturer, Department of Humanities, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland. His current interests include the use of GIS, spatial inequalities in health and healthcare provision.
Frank Houghton was born a Royal Air Force brat in Singapore, and through his father s work was raised in England, Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands and Germany. He studied for his undergraduate degree and MA in Peace Studies at the University of Ulster, where he also trained as a teacher. He subsequently obtained an MSc in Computer Science at the Queen s University of Belfast before going on to be awarded a PhD in health geography at the National University of Ireland at Maynooth.
Throughout many of these years of study he worked part-time as a Research Assistant on a string of short term research contracts, effectively serving an apprenticeship in research. He was subsequently hired as a Researcher in a Department of Public Health on a project exploring the possible human health effects of alleged pollution in an investigation in County Limerick (Ireland). Here Frank developed a love for health/ medical geography (as well as the sociology of health) and health inequalities, which started him on the path to his PhD. While working in Public Health he also developed an interest in the potential use, and misuse, of GIS.
He subsequently worked in a research unit focussing on older people and as Head of Research in a homeless charity before moving to New Zealand to work for a year as a health geographer in a Public Health Unit. He later returned to work in Public Health in Ireland before moving to take up his current position in Limerick Institute of Technology where he teaches research methods and statistics to social care students. Other interests: the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, complementary therapies, child health, and he has emerging interests in therapeutic environments, disability and space, and health technology diffusion
Frank may be contacted at Frank.Houghton@LIT.ie. MGSG Home | Profiles
Updated: January 2007
Health and Medical Geography 