Dr Oscar O'Mara
-
Email
o.omara@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
Dr Oscar O'Mara is an interdisciplinary researcher with professional experience advising government ministers in public health, environmental monitoring, futures thinking, and social science research. His research has focussed on innovative public health approaches to health security and addressing social and health inequalities in marginalised populations, considering air quality, wastewater monitoring, less-than-lethal weapons, sleep, and new/ emerging technologies. His work has influenced policy internationally and in recent years has been the senior scientific advisor for the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service, contributing to the scientific response to COVID-19 by looking at novel approaches to identifying outbreaks using wastewater based epidemiology, excess mortality, testing approaches, and the overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic in custodial settings, including co-authoring the SAGE report on transmission in prisons. Oscar has qualifications in Public Health, Social Policy, and Criminology.
Qualifications
-
PhD Criminology University of Nottingham, (2024)
-
Masters Public Health Nottingham Trent University, (2014)
-
Bachelors (Hons) Social Policy & Administration University of Nottingham, (2013)
Publications
Publications (1)
Plugge, E., Burke, D., Czachorowski, M., Gutridge, K., Maxwell, F., McGrath, N., O'Mara, O., O'Moore, E. and Parkes, J., (2021). Determining the Prevalence and Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Prisons in England: Protocol for a Repeated Panel Survey and Enhanced Outbreak Study (Preprint)
Journal articles (8)
O'Mara, O. and Bonser, T., (2025). . Incarceration. 6
O'Mara, O., Rodriguez Rivero, MC., Dalziel, S. and Sharpe, T., (2025). . Prison Service Journal (279), 3-9
O'Mara, O., (2024). . Incarceration. 5
Jobling, K., Quintela-Baluja, M., Hassard, F., Adamou, P., Blackburn, A., Research Team, T., McIntyre-Nolan, S., O'Mara, O., Romalde, JL., Di Cesare, M. and Graham, DW., (2023). . Journal of Water and Health. 22 (1), 64-76
Hassard, F., Smith, TR., Boehm, AB., Nolan, S., O'Mara, O., Di Cesare, M. and Graham, D., (2022). . The Lancet Microbe. 3 (8), e556-e557
Plugge, E., Burke, D., Czachorowski, M., Gutridge, K., Maxwell, F., McGrath, N., O'Mara, O., O'Moore, E. and Parkes, J., (2022). . JMIR Research Protocols. 11 (1), e30749-e30749
McCarthy, CV., O'Mara, O., van Leeuwen, E., CMMID COVID-19 Working Group, Jit, M. and Sandmann, F., (2022). . BMC public health. 22 (1), 1003-
Bays, D., Williams, H., Pellis, L., Curran-Sebastian, J., O'Mara, O., Team, PJM. and Finnie, T., (2021). . International Journal of Prisoner Health. 17 (3), 380-397
Book chapters (3)
O'Mara, O., The Prison Security Fallacy: How the everyday use of force produces unequal security. In: Unequal Security: Welfare, Crime and Social Inequality. Editors: Starke, P., Elbek, LL. and Wenzelburger, G., . Routledge. 9781003462132
O'Mara, O., (2024). The prison security fallacy. In: Unequal Security. Routledge. 73- 96
Mann, R., Barnett, G., Box, G., Howard, FF., O鈥橫ara, O., Travers, R. and Wakeling, H., (2019). Rehabilitative Culture in Prisons for People Convicted of Sexual Offending. In: Sexual Crime and the Experience of Imprisonment. Springer International Publishing. 1- 33. 9783030049294