Rate My Professor Alejandra Letelier

Dr Alejandra Letelier is a Senior Lecturer in Postgraduate Research at Anglia Ruskin University in the School of Allied Health and Social Care within the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Social Care. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from University College London, an MSc in Dental Public Health from University College London, and a BDS in Dental Surgery from Universidad de los Andes in Chile. As a social epidemiologist, her work centres on social determinants of health, health inequalities, and life course epidemiology, with a focus on young carers, oral health inequalities, digital determinants of health, the intersection of human rights and health, social mobility and health, ageing and wellbeing, and longitudinal data analysis using major UK and international datasets such as the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, the Millennium Cohort Study, Understanding Society, and the Mexican Health and Ageing Study.

Letelier has authored or co-authored publications including 'Changes in life satisfaction, self-esteem, and self-rated health before, during, and after becoming a young carer in the UK: a longitudinal, propensity score analysis' (2025) in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 'Understanding young caring in the UK pre- and post-COVID-19: Prevalence, correlates, and insights from three UK longitudinal surveys' (2024) in Children and Youth Services Review, and 'Life course socioeconomic position and general and oral health in later life: Assessing the role of social causation and health selection pathways' (2022) in SSM – Population Health. She serves as co-researcher on Nuffield Foundation projects examining the long-term effects of being a young carer (2023-2026) and has received funding including from the COORDINATE Fund and NIHR North Thames ARC. She is a member of the Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies as Young Researcher (2024-2025) and has delivered presentations at conferences including the Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Annual Conference and the International Young Carers Conference. Her teaching includes Postgraduate Research Design and Major Project modules, and she supervises research in areas such as health inequalities, health and gender, ageing and wellbeing, and carers and health inequalities.